


In Stark Contrast

by moonmagician



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Disaster fic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, I haven't slept, I saw this ship pairing online and it actually seemed really interesting, Idk what's happening, Lots of Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark and Stephen Strange being arrogant cocky bastards, VERY SAD IT'S BASED ON ENDGAME OKAY, lots and lots of banter, slow burn (?)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27121129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmagician/pseuds/moonmagician
Summary: A fanfiction set at the beginning of the events of Avengers: Endgame, in which the only difference is that Stephen Strange was not a member of the half of all universal life that was disintegrated.OROf all the times for Tony Stark to realize that he's bisexual, it has to be while he's in the middle of trying to save the universe.ORTwo cocky bastards who end up being one another's solace in a brutal world.ORSevere pain. Just generally.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Stephen Strange, Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers & Stephen Strange, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	1. Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody! I'm starting a new fic on a whim that will probably die after like 4 chapters because I have no follow-through on anything, but homosexual ships with characters that you wouldn't think to pair together are absolutely my JAM, and so when I came across evidence of Strange x Stark's existence online, I jumped on it immediately.
> 
> I am not an incredibly die-hard Marvel buff, there are a few movies that I haven't watched, and I'm not going to have all of the details memorized, so please forgive me for getting things wrong. I want this story to follow the same basic plot of Endgame while also weaving in elements of romance between Tony and Stephen.
> 
> Other than that, I'll try to keep it as consistent as possible! Expect me to almost always have some kind of Marvel wiki open when I'm writing this fic...I hope you guys enjoy!

If you asked him about those final few days in deep space, Tony would’ve told you that he hardly remembered a damn thing aside from feeling incredibly cold.

It wasn’t just a light chill on your skin, either, or even an intense frostiness that made your muscles ache – this was a deep, aching sensation that wrapped around Tony’s bones, sunk into his very soul, and was definitely covering his brain in a thick layer of permafrost.

Even the one part of him that had persistently stayed warm – a spot on his heart, just behind his AR – was slowly giving in to the iciness, and he could feel it weaken in the way it tugged him back to Pepper, to the Avengers, to Stark Industries, to his home. His _family._

Tony had never been good at family. His crippling daddy issues and HYDRA’s treachery had made sure of that. But time and time again, all the people he now surrounded himself with had proved that they’d be there to pick him up, every single time he fell down – and he’d been doing that a hell of a lot lately. And they forgave him for it, each and every time, and challenged him to do better, and drove him crazy in a million ways, but they loved him. They had coaxed a flame to life out of the empty ash pit where his heart used to be, and it became one of the most powerful guiding lights he had – and even that was close to being snuffed out, because Tony Fucking Stark was just about ready to Give the Fuck Up.

He’d been trapped in the Benatar for...he wanted to say it had been twenty-one days, but he was hardly sure. There were multiple suns and moons here, swirling around in weird patterns that made no sense to him and which his grumpy purplish-blue companion, Nebula, didn’t care to explain – and Tony had no clue what to make of _her,_ either. She seemed perfectly willing to play a hundred thousand games of tabletop football with him, and had some of her own alien wisdom to share when they did repairs on the ship together, but she was still brooding, closed-off, and dodged every single personal question Tony ever threw her way. She reminded him, he thought humorlessly, of himself when he was younger. But as intriguing and irritating as she was, this didn’t change the fact that Tony was trapped in deep space with no food, no water, stuck with an alien cyborg he didn’t know, and most of the time left alone to look out at strange constellations and think on every single way he’d failed every person he loved.

Bruce, Steve, and Natasha had been left practically alone to clean up a mess that Tony blamed himself for not being able to stop. Carol Danvers was off doing fuck-knows-what in fuck-knows-where part of the galaxy. James Rhodes, Tony’s best friend in the entire world, would probably have to assume his role as Iron Man, putting out more fires that Tony had started.

And Peter...

Tony felt his already-parched throat close up at the thought of his bouncing and brave protégé, the Spider-kid with a mind that Einstein would drool over and a heart that would put pure gold to shame. There were a million thoughts and feelings that Tony hadn’t been able to put into words about Peter, warm stirrings in his chest when he saw the boy’s smile or when he got to ruffle his hair, that made him think of the rare opportunities that he’d gotten to spend time with his own dad. There was so much that he’d wanted to say, that he was sure he’d get the _chance_ to say to the kid when he was ready...

But now that last opportunity was gone. The last time he’d gotten to see Peter, the kid lay bloodstained and trembling in his arms, begging that he didn’t want to go – and now he was gone, and so were over half the Avengers, and so was half of all life in the known fucking universe. And he hadn’t done anything to stop it. Had been powerless to lift even a fucking finger as he watched Thanos, that meaty purple bastard, tear his _family_ to pieces.

Tony couldn’t even find it in him to cry. He just curled in on himself, let his shoulders shake, and felt his breathing come in ragged gasps as the brutal wave washed over him again and again that he had _failed them all._

The words repeated themselves over and over in his mind as he dragged himself on all fours out onto the Benatar’s flight deck and watched the stars bloom before him. He let the sheer tranquility of it all envelop him, and it staved off the panic attack – at least for a little while.

 _If we are going to die here, at least it will be a nice view,_ Nebula had said the other day.

She was right, Tony reckoned. The swirling constellations outside reminded him of Pepper’s laugh, and Peter’s smile.

Propped up next to the glass and also watching the constellations go by was the cracked Iron Man mask, the lights behind its eyes dim. Tony’s mouth twisted as he looked at the ugly scars across the metal – yet another reminder of all the ways he’d colossally fucked up – and he had half a mind to throw the damn thing out the ship’s airlock.

But the mask had proved just as useful as it was painful in these past three weeks of hell; they’d allowed Tony to log his every thought at the end of the day, from rage-filled vents to tearful ramblings to long stretches of doom-filled, contemplative silence. And even though the suit’s emergency function was linked directly to Pepper’s private line, Tony could very well have been screaming into the void for all the response he got. But it was the last thing keeping him from going over the edge of insanity, and he figured that if he was going to Give the Fuck Up, using the mask was his best shot.

He reached over and turned the mask just slightly so it was facing him with its cold, impassive stare. He hit a switch on the side, felt a twinge of relief when a light blinked on the metal, and saw the camera function behind the mask’s eyes flicker faintly.

Tony swallowed. “This thing on?”

The mask, as expected, did not respond – but that only gave Tony several more uncomfortable moments of silence in which to think about what the hell he was supposed to say to Pepper Potts.

“Hey, Ms. Potts. Pep. If you find this recording...don’t post it on social media. It’s gonna be a real tearjerker.”

Pepper was Tony’s person, and had been for as long as he could remember, despite the fact that he’d failed her in more ways than practically anyone else. They’d been partners in business, partners in crime, partners in love, partners in one of the most amicable divorce settlements Tony’s lawyer said he’d ever seen, and would have been partners in raising Tony’s daughter, who Pepper was currently pregnant with. Just another thing he would’ve failed at, he was sure...

“I don’t know if you’re ever going to see these. I don’t even know if you’re still...”

The thought of Pepper being dead painfully wrenched Tony’s gut. “God, I hope so.”

They’d been in love. Completely in love, despite driving each other crazy all the time. Pepper was the one who taught him that that was what love meant, actually. She helped him realize that all the Avengers, all the people he’d met and fought alongside and fought _with_ sometimes, were his family.

“Today’s day twenty-one...no, twenty-two.”

But Pepper had always challenged Tony in ways he knew he needed to be challenged, but wasn’t ready for yet. She challenged him to be a version of himself he wasn’t sure even existed, and she believed he was a better man than he’d ever actually been. And so it was inevitable that one day he’d let her down too deeply for her to want him to help her back up.

Before that train of thought could take him too far, he cracked a joke. “You know, if it wasn’t for the existential terror of staring into the literal void of space, I’d say I’m feeling a little better today.”

This was a lie. He wasn’t. But he knew how she worried when he came back from world-saving all banged up and bruised, but still raring to go again. And God knew that she’d be having absolute _fits_ if she’d been getting any of the messages he’d logged into his mask in the past twenty-two days.

That was what had ultimately messed things up for them – the fact that Tony eventually realized the promise he’d made to Pepper wasn’t one he’d ever be able to keep. Iron Man wasn’t just something he did, something he could _stop_ doing...it was something he was. And every moment that he thought about not using his suits, not helping people, when he knew he could have been there, was every day that he was failing everybody else in the world. So he’d failed her instead.

“Infection’s run its course, thanks to the Blue Meanie back there. You’d like her. She’s very practical. And only a tiny bit sadistic.”

He thought about the way Nebula chuckled when he winced while having his wounds stitched up, and it reminded him of how Pepper laughed while tending to his AR.

“The fuel cells were cracked during battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge. Bought ourselves about 48 hours of flight time. Problem is that was about...49 hours ago.”

He thought about how Pepper didn’t give two fucks about all of the janky scientific shit Tony rambled on about in his workshop every evening, but she’d still sprawl across a couch down there anyway with a cappuccino and her laptop, keeping him company as they both worked late into the nights.

“Which means, we’re dead in the water. A thousand light years from the nearest 7-11.”

He thought about how much he loved blue raspberry ICEE’s from 7-11, and how Pepper would always order him one when she knew he’d been having bad PTSD flare-ups or a tough day in the workshop.

“Most of the quote-unquote ‘food’ and potable water ran out two weeks ago.”

He thought about candlelit anniversary dinners with Pepper, and the fact that he’d always either end the night with her throwing champagne at him or tearing his suit off.

“Pep, I know I said no more surprises. But, I gotta say, I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like...well, you know what it looks like.”

He thought about coming home to Pepper, and having her forgive him for one last fuck-up. He knew she was far too smart for that. But a man could fantasize in his last hours, couldn’t he?

“Don’t feel bad about this. I mean, actually, if you grovel for a couple weeks, and then move on with enormous guilt...” Oh, that one would make her livid _and_ teary-eyed in the same breath. Man, if he hadn’t been a genius world-saving scientist, Tony mused, he could’ve taken up a career in poetry.

A wave of exhaustion swept over Tony, and he felt the last remainder of strength in his limbs fading away. He could barely hold his mask up to talk into anymore – and this wasn’t like the other days, where he knew a power nap or two could energize him enough for another few hours. This felt very _final,_ and Tony knew if he he lay down he wouldn’t be getting back up. But _fuck_ if he wasn’t tired, and an eternal sleep didn’t sound fucking inviting.

“I should probably lie down for a minute, rest my eyes.”

He swallowed, hard. He had no clue how to say goodbye to the woman who had turned his life upside down.

“Please know, when I drift off, it will be like every day lately. I’m fine, totally fine.”

Lying until the end. She’d slap him if she was here.

“...I’m going to dream about you. It’s always you.”

Tony hadn’t said _I love you_ to anyone since he was a child. He wished, he fucking _wished_ he could say it now. If there was anyone he knew he needed to say that to with his last breaths, it was Pep – but all she got was this flimsy, pathetic excuse for it instead. Because that was what Tony Fucking Stark, the all-powerful Iron Man, had become. Flimsy and pathetic.

He switched his mask off, and felt darkness begin to cloud his vision. It didn’t envelop him completely; he felt cyborg hands on him, and was just awake enough to grunt his appreciation when Nebula lifted him into a chair.

When Tony was a little boy and had gone with his parents to church, he remembered asking one of the older teens what it was like when you went to heaven. The other kid informed Tony that at the end of your life, everything else faded away and was replaced by a powerful, gleaming light – and that was the last thing you saw before Judgement Day.

Looking back, this story had been told with a lot of exaggerated arm-waving and overdramatic pauses, so adult Tony had dismissed it alongside all the other God-fearing thoughts his parents had attempted to instill in him as a child.

But as white and gold filled Tony’s entire field of vision, he could only be surprised by the fact that heaven was even letting him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :)


	2. Five Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of exposition happens, and in which Stephen Strange is gay and angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Anyway, that’s not what I even wanted to ask about. I was gonna ask if you wanted to swing by the Avengers compound, grab some coffee...I think Natasha made peanut butter sandwiches.”
> 
> Stephen cocked one eyebrow. “What am I, a first grader?”
> 
> “Hey, peanut butter is universal,” Rogers said. “And it seems like you could use a little more time out of the apartment.”
> 
> “You know, for someone who leads a support group, you’re pretty shit at the whole therapy thing. That was the first accurate thing you’ve said all night.”
> 
> “Fuck off, Strange. My car’s outside.”

Stephen Strange had never thought he could be bitter about seeing his hospital so full of people day after day. But despite new patients pouring in on the daily and the unused cafeteria on the sixth floor having been converted into a beautiful new therapy and rehabilitation center, every day that he went to work and watched his hands complete their tasks without even a flutter from his pinky, Stephen felt nothing but hollow.

He remembered when all he’d wanted was to get that mobility back, to go back to the practiced ease with which he’d performed surgeries, to be on the front pages of medical journals and to spend his evenings polishing his Rolex watch collection. God, things had been so _simple_ then; and now, half the world had been disintegrated and it seemed like the other half was always piling into his office asking where the bathroom was or requesting a therapy transfer.

Stephen lived for two things now: the occasional pings he’d get from what was left of the Avengers asking him to check out disturbances throughout New York City, and the coffee dates he went on with Christine Palmer, his ex-girlfriend – if you could even go so far as to call them _dates._ All they did together was talk about everything they’d lost, and list everything they missed about the way things used to be. Sometimes Stephen shared stories with Christine about daring (and very fabricated) ‘missions’ he’d gone on with the Avengers; as exhausting as these were to continually come up with, they were the ones that made her smile.

After one of their coffee-shop jaunts and an _extremely_ long shift at work, Stephen had taken Christine back to his flat and they’d had a fumbling attempt at sex. It was awkward, devoid of passion, and ended with two uncomfortably flushed faces and a pair of jeans being hurriedly zipped back up – and as thick as the tension in the air had been at work the next morning, it turned out to be a valuable learning experience that Christine’s place in Stephen’s life was as his best friend only.

She took this news amicably (almost with a little relief, much to Stephen’s chagrin), and was even more excited when, after several forays into the darker corners of ~~Grindr~~ the internet, Stephen came out to her as gay.

His life returned to a semblance of _normal,_ if that was a word that could even legally be applied to any human being on Earth anymore. He was just a regular, quickly-becoming-depressed homosexual surgeon with an addiction to coffee, whose best (and only) friend was his ex-girlfriend. He spent most of his days treating patients, writing emails, and chatting with Christine, with the occasional quirky night out spent battling some strange new horror that had decided to pop down to Earth from whatever planet it had come from, specifically to disturb him.

On Tuesday evenings, Stephen made the short commute from Manhattan to Brooklyn so that he could join the support group Steve Rogers was hosting. He heard the same stories, listened to the same saccharine and completely empty reassurances, read the same faded and overly-optimistic slogans on the walls. It was hell, but because of Christine’s wishes and his desire to remain connected to the Avengers, Stephen continued attending.

He’d never been too sure if he liked Rogers, but from one hurting man to another, Stephen felt as though he understood America’s former crown jewel – although he hadn’t suffered nearly as much, he was sure. Rogers had lost half his family, people he’d surrounded himself with for years and years as they battled the forces of evil together – and standing beside him, Stephen still felt like an outsider. The magic he’d learned was nothing like the other Avengers’ superpowers, and he felt like a child playing with a clumsy doll as the older kids around him sped away on shiny bikes. He had barely begun to learn all he could about the new territory he was entering before it had all been taken away, but Rogers had had to watch his _life’s work_ crumble at the meaty hands of a purple space god.

It almost made Stephen feel guilty.

He was too lost in thought on this specific subject one Tuesday night that he didn’t realize the support group session had ended and most of the other attendees had filed out of the room. He and Rogers were the only ones left, and Rogers was staring at him with a look of concern.

“You alright, Strange?”

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Stephen replied stiffly, shaking himself out of his reverie and snatching his keys up off the empty chair beside him. “Great discussion today. Definitely not identical to the last three we’ve had.”

“Come on, Strange, at least _pretend_ you didn’t totally hate it,” Rogers said with a disheartened chuckle. “We’re doing what we can to try and heal, even if that’s...not much.”

An uncomfortable, but almost understanding silence passed between the two men, as the weight of what had happened settled over them once again.

 _Five years,_ Stephen thought bitterly, _and it still feels like a freshly opened wound._

“Listen, I know you’ve been busy,” Rogers said, bringing Stephen back to the present before he could drift away again, “but if I remember, Tuesdays are your night off, yeah?”

“Yeah, they are.” Stephen grinned as he took in Rogers’ now almost nervous expression. “Are you about to ask me on a date, Captain Rogers? Because I hate to break it to you, but I don’t—”

Rogers’ face crumpled, and Stephen realized his mistake just a moment too late. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Quickly, Rogers turned away to hide his face, but when he spoke again, his voice was weak. “It’s okay. I, uh...my therapist has been telling me I should talk about it more anyway. Says it’ll help me move on or something.”

Stephen snorted. “Believe me, I know all about therapists and preaching about _moving on_. It’s highly overrated – and it’s also perfectly okay to still hurt for a while after losing a friend.”

Rogers flinched a little bit. “That’s the thing, uh...”

He turned around to face Stephen again, but his arms were crossed and his eyes were trained on the floor. “Bucky was – he and I were – far more than just, uh...”

“Oh.”

“What, just ‘oh’?”

“Yeah, just...I didn’t realize that you two were, uh, lovers. That’s just...surprising, I guess.” Stephen wondered if he should’ve realized sooner, but then reasoned with himself that he’d spent hardly any time with Rogers and literally none with Barnes.

“Is that a problem?” Rogers asked.

“What?”

Stephen was about to get lost in another one of his musings again, but realized that Rogers was looking up at him with a once again nervous, but this time extremely guarded expression.

“Wha – _oh!_ Oh my God, is _that_ why you’ve been looking at me funny since I brought it up?” Stephen almost started to laugh, but held himself back. “Jesus Christ, I’m not uncomfortable because you’re both men. I’m gay too.”

Rogers looked thunderstruck. “You _are_?”

Stephen snorted. “Now it’s my turn to ask why you’re so surprised.”

“I don’t know, you just seem so...” Rogers gestured vaguely in Stephen’s general direction.

“You’re telling me _I’m_ the one who seems straight?” Stephen really did start laughing this time. “This coming from the man who wears an _American flag-_ themed superhero suit.”

Both of them dissolved into good-natured chuckles, and Stephen saw Rogers’ shoulders visibly relax as the tension in the room faded away.

“Jesus. That’s good to know, I guess. You never know who the homophobes are in this town.”

“I agree. Seems gay on the surface, but that makes it easier for assholes to slip through the cracks,” Stephen responded. “I am genuinely sorry about Barnes, though. That’s...awful.”

Sighing and running a hand through his hair, Rogers shrugged. “I hate to admit that I still get choked up when someone mentions his name, but...I probably _should_ be talking about it. God knows it’s better than bottling this shit up.”

They lapsed into another companiable silence, before Rogers spoke up once more.

“Anyway, that’s not what I even wanted to ask about. I was gonna ask if you wanted to swing by the Avengers compound, grab some coffee...I think Natasha made peanut butter sandwiches.”

Stephen cocked one eyebrow. “What am I, a first grader?”

“Hey, peanut butter is universal,” Rogers said. “And it seems like you could use a little more time out of the apartment.”

“You know, for someone who leads a support group, you’re pretty shit at the whole therapy thing. That was the first accurate thing you’ve said all night.”

“Fuck off, Strange. My car’s outside.”

\---

Stephen’s train to work sometimes took him past the Avengers compound, but he had gotten fewer and fewer changes to be inside since the Snap – and looking at it now, he was not envious of the Avengers who still spent most of their time here. The outside of the building was surrounded by overgrown grass and ivy, the chain-link fences were rusty, and all but a few rooms inside were carpeted with at least an inch of dust.

Nevertheless, Rogers made wonderful coffee, and he’d been right that Stephen had needed to spend more time out of his apartment. He’d started spending more time with Christine there because it was less lonely, but when he was roused by nightmares and was alone in the house, the walls always felt like they were closing in on him. He remembered having to watch people crumble to dust before him, watching as Thor sliced Thanos’ head off, remembered calling all the numbers he had saved and finding out that both his parents had been lost...all of it just as vivid as if it had happened the day before.

He vaguely heard Rogers and Natasha Romanoff speaking in hushed voices from the other room, but the subject of their discussion sounded heavy and far too familiar for Stephen’s liking; so instead of listening in, he chose to cross to the other side of the kitchen and stare out the windows at the Manhattan skyline.

Being here was...nice. Even though he’d only recently become an Avenger, and even though most of the time he was at the compound it was because something or someone was in mortal danger, it had been one of his favorite places to spend time – he’d never spent so much time with so many brilliant minds in one place. His medical conferences looked like child’s play in comparison, and he’d always longed to shut his eyes and just absorb all of the collective knowledge that all of these people had. Bantering with Rogers, discussing theories with Bruce Banner, even practicing combat with Natasha – Stephen cherished all of it. He’d never been good at making friends, but these people welcomed him as one of them almost immediately in the same way he wished he’d been welcomed at the hospital – because they all had a common goal to save lives.

His lips twisted in displeasure, however, as he thought of the one thing he hated about the Avengers. He wished it was a small thing, something he could just brush aside and ignore, but considering that Tony Stark was at the forefront of nearly every mission the Avengers had, Stephen had to see his smug face no matter what was going on.

Stark was the one person in the Avengers who Stephen felt didn’t respect him at all. He referred to him with different versions of “the wacko with the funky cape and the magic tricks”, also calling him Houdini, Copperfield, Magic Man, Sparky, and any other insulting thing he could think of – and it drove Stephen crazy. He wrote off all of Stephen’s ideas, talking about how they “didn’t need any kind of sparkly shit” to solve their problems when they had “real technology”. Never mind that Stephen himself had been just as much of a dubious asshole about the Mystic Arts when he first learned them, but he figured that the great and powerful Iron Man would at least make an effort to _pretend_ he cared about what a fellow Avenger had to say.

Natasha was the one person Stephen felt comfortable complaining to about the whole situation; despite deeply respecting Stark, she cared about him in the way that an older sister did, and that meant he probably drove her crazy too. She was also just as quiet and calculating as Stephen liked to believe he was himself; she didn’t mince words, and whenever she did speak, her phrases were chosen carefully.

What she’d said to him at the time, however, was less than satisfying. “More often than not when he’s being a dick, he eventually turns out to be right. It’s the delivery that bothers people, but he gets away with it because he has a huge brain and a pretty face.”

Stephen tried not to think too much about the _pretty face_ part, because it certainly did not make it any easier to hate the man. However, when Stephen came out over text to Natasha – again, the only other Avenger he trusted enough to do so for some reason – her response had been:

**lol. of course i support you, i want to make that very clear**

**i’m bisexual myself actually**

**but also maybe that’s why you spend so much time staring at tony**

Needless to say, he had left her on read.

His train of thought was, for the third time that night, broken by the sound of Rogers’ voice. The insistency in it worried him, however, so when he’d said, “Hey, Strange, would you come in here for a second?” Stephen hadn’t hesitated to spin around and join Rogers and Natasha by their bank of holo-screens.

“What’s going...”

He trailed off as he caught sight of a somewhat familiar face staring back at the three of them from a CCTV display in front of Natasha...a man in his mid-to-late thirties, with scruffy brown hair and a face covered in extremely unkempt salt-and-pepper stubble. Stephen wrinkled his nose; nothing bothered him more than a man who didn’t like to take care of his beard. (Read: Tony Stark.)

“Hello? Is anyone home?” the man was saying staring disconsolately into the camera. “This is, uh, Scott Lang?”

“Is that the guy with the suit that shrinks?” Stephen said.

“Ant-Man, yes,” Steve responded, “but, Natasha – is this an old message? What’s he–”

“It’s...the front gate.”

Natasha turned, and her stunned expression was reflected back by both men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the few of you who read Chapter One! I really hope this story gains traction as it goes along, and I have a lot of great ideas for where I want to take it. Again, obviously it will follow the storyline that occurred in Endgame, but with a romantic plot occurring between Stark + Strange. I'm also going to skip a few Endgame scenes, because I feel like we know them from the movie and like they're not as relevant to the specific story I want to focus on. You'll see what I mean as you read.
> 
> I plan to switch back and forth every chapter between Tony's and Stephen's perspectives, with the occasional switches happening within the chapters themselves. This chapter is a lot of exposition from Stephen's perspective, because I have to build him into a storyline that originally didn't have him in it.
> 
> As you guys can tell, I'm a hardcore Stucky shipper, and it's also very important to me that side characters have dynamics and relationships of their own with each other (I am a big sl*t for character development, and I'm not ashamed). I decided the easiest way to go about this story would be with only ONE character having a sexuality crisis (Tony), but Stephen's never properly been intimate with another man, so it will be new territory for them both. I'm excited for them to meet in this next chapter, and I hope you like the little crush on him I gave Stephen :) enemies to friends to lovers is one of my FAVORITE tropes.
> 
> Strap in, everybody! I love you all!


	3. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I copy-paste a bunch of Endgame dialogue, but throw in Stephen Strange, a bunch of twists, and a lot more angst.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: portrayal of intrusive thoughts/an anxiety attack. Proceed at your own discretion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He made eye contact with everyone at the table, gaze last meeting Steve’s. In it, he saw all of the pain he’d experienced reflected back at him; that carefully crafted acceptance that they’d failed the universe, and that there was nothing that could be done about it. He also saw, to his chagrin and a little bit of jealousy, that that acceptance Steve had worked so hard to build had already been tossed aside, the second he found even the tiniest hint of a possibility that he could fix what Tony had broken.
> 
> But that was how it had always been, wasn’t it?

It had been five and a half years since Tony Stark had called off his engagement to the love of his life due to a belief that he would never be able to stop being Iron Man. It had also been, ironically, five years since Tony Stark _had_ stopped being Iron Man, and had bought himself a sprawling, far-flung rural house that allowed him plenty of time to spend with his ex-fiancée, his daughter, and the crushing weight of all his mistakes.

But there was no point to it anymore. No amount of successes Tony could ever have would reduce the enormity of the failure he’d already experienced.

He hadn’t been strong enough, or fast enough, or smart enough. He hadn’t been able to take care of his team well enough, they’d nearly gone to war, and he’d lost _so much_ already – but because of how much of a colossal fuck-up he continued to be, he’d gone and lost half the world’s population on top of it all.

Because the universe just _loved_ to fuck with Tony Fucking Stark.

Part of him almost wished he’d quit it sooner. Maybe he and Pepper could’ve gotten married, lived a happy life, raised their daughter as parents who weren’t separated. Maybe he wouldn’t have destroyed and then clumsily (and unsuccessfully) attempted to fix his relationship with one of his best and truest friends in the world. Maybe he wouldn’t have been the one to blame when Purple Nurple had snapped half the world’s people into dust.

But it took _that_ – it took having all the people he loved crowd around him in his hospital bed, and try to tell him as gently as they could that it was too late, that the Stones were gone – for him to realize that he couldn’t do it. _That_ was the fucking wake-up call that had sent Tony Stark into a spiral so bad that he had to be hospitalized again multiple times, even after the physical aftermath of his time on the Benatar had been healed. _That_ was the enormous mistake that woke him up in cold sweats every night, and sent him scurrying to Pepper’s bedroom or study so that she could hold him until his breath found its way back to his chest.

It still haunted him. He knew it always would.

But it had also turned out to be, more or less, one of the best decisions of his life. He was now living and working as a full-time Stark Industries manager, had his best friend and closest confidant as a roommate, and woke up every day to see the face of his daughter, the most perfect person in the entire universe. He had a beautiful house with a beautiful view and no other people to bother him for miles, and could spend every night tinkering in his garage workshop. Granted, it wasn’t nearly as fancy as the old Malibu mansion, or even the Avengers compound, but it felt so much more like home.

No worlds to save. No bad guys to kill. No suits to wear, or intel to get, or intergalactic superpowers to try and fail to defeat.

Never mind that a part of him felt empty because of it. Never mind that he mourned it every night like a person mourns a lost lover, never mind that he spent his down time mulling over everything he could be doing to keep the remainder of Earth’s people safe. _He_ was safe. And he had a family, and by fucking God he was going to do everything in his power to hold onto that. He wasn’t gonna let it slip through his fingers a second time.

So what the fuck were _they_ doing here?

\---

“Daddy, are those your friends?”

“Well, they – I – sure, hon, those are my friends. We like to yell at each other sometimes, but they’re my friends.”

“Like you and Mommy, then.”

Tony smiled despite himself. “Yeah, something like that.”

Morgan Stark, angel on earth and absolute love of Tony Stark’s life, pursed her lips and clutched her glass of orange juice tighter in her hands. “Then why didn’t you look happy to see them?”

“I am happy to see them, baby girl, I just wasn’t expecting them. You know, usually when people come over it’s because you _invite_ them.”

“Hmm. That’s rude, then. Are you sure they’re your friends? Friends shouldn’t be rude to you. I can stun-blast them if you want.”

“How in the world do you know what a stun-blast is?” Tony booped his daughter’s nose and pulled a scandalized face. “Morgan H. Stark, have you been going through my stuff in the garage again?”

Morgan pouted. “It’s so much more interesting than any of my stuff! Not my fault Mommy always buys me boring build kits instead of fun ones like yours.”

“That’s because the _fun stuff_ in my workshop is also extremely dangerous, and even though you’re a genius you are still four years old,” Tony chuckled. “Now c’mon, eat your lunch. I made grilled cheese, and Planet Earth’s queued up on the TV in the den for after.”

Immediately, Morgan perked up. “Is it the space episode?”

“Nah, sorry, kiddo, I figured we’d teach you some more about oceans this week. You’ve spent the last month learning about space.”

“I just wanted to know because–”

“Because _I_ went there, I know, sweetie.” Man, Tony loved this kid. “But you’ve learned a lot! Lots more than I ever did when I was out there. And you can always go back and rewatch it after you’re done with oceans.”

“Okay.” Morgan took another sip of her orange juice and smiled up at her dad. “Will you come watch with me after? I like learning facts from you more than the TV.”

Tony had to fight not to melt. “Of course, squirt.”

Morgan took a hefty bite of her grilled cheese, and then glanced back at Tony again. “Also, there’s more orange juice in the fridge if your friends want any.”

“I’ll be sure to let them know. Now, remember to wash your hands. No sticky grilled cheese fingers on the couch.” Tony ruffled his daughter’s hair and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

“I know, Daddy,” Morgan replied. She grabbed his sweater collar so she could kiss his cheek, and then giggled. “You’re scratchy.”

 _Fuck,_ her smile reminded him so much of–

No. He wouldn’t say that name. Not even in his head.

Throwing one last wink his daughter’s way, Tony snatched the bottle of orange juice from the fridge, grabbed a few glasses, and sauntered back out onto the porch, where his good mood was immediately swept away by the breeze – because there, tainting the good auras of his perfectly good patio furniture, sat Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, that shrinking guy, and... _him._

God, he hated Stephen Strange.

Tony had always jokingly said that there was only room for _one_ self-absorbed genius on the team, but it had definitely proved to be factual the second Strange and Tony had had to be in the same room together. The guy thought he knew everything about rescue missions just because he’d done a few bullshit surgeries...and though Tony hated to admit it, all that fancy magical shit Strange did made him incredibly nervous.

Tony had had a few previous experiences with magic, and absolutely none of them had been good. Usually it was some kind of evil supervillain or god-type being trying to destroy the balance of the universe or rip a hole in the space-time continuum or something like that; he was _still_ trying to wrap his head around the power of the Infinity Stones, and then some cape-wearing knockoff Harry Potter decided to waltz in and act like he could boss Tony around.

Not to _mention_ all the times he’d ragged on Tony for not trimming his beard more often. As if having the most perfectly-groomed mustache in the world made Strange somehow _better_ than him.

Asshole.

“Well, are you gonna stand in your doorway all day or are you gonna come sit down and pour us some orange juice?” Steve said.

Tony’s eyes narrowed, but he told himself that he didn’t know what they were here to discuss yet. Although, based on their grave expressions and the company Natasha and Steve were keeping, he could probably hazard a guess.

He poured Steve a glass of orange juice.

“Anybody else?”

Shrinking guy (Tony was sure he recognized him, but he wasn’t sure from where) and Natasha both indicated that they wanted orange juice. Only Doctor Asshole declined.

“What, think you’re too fancy for this shit?” Tony asked, meeting Strange’s eyes. “I’ll have you know that my daughter, who is the fanciest and most incredible person in the world, drinks this stuff and says, and I quote, that it’s _really yummy._ That’s the highest endorsement I can think of for any drink ever, and I’m honestly a bit offended that you’d reject it.”

Stephen did not seem even remotely amused. “I’m not thirsty, thank you.”

Gritting his teeth, Tony turned to the other three. “Why is he here, exactly?”

“He’s an Avenger, just like you and me,” Natasha said coolly.

“I don’t see Banner here. Or Rhodes or Thor or Danvers.”

“Tony, Can we please just be civil–”

“He was with me getting coffee when we saw Scott on the CCTV feed at the front of the compound,” Steve cut in.

“Oh, so you’re fucking him, then? You and Strange are fucking. That’s good to know, good to know that everyone around here can move on faster than me–”

“Stop talking.”

It was Strange who had said this last thing, his mouth a hard line and his back rigid. He was wearing a shirt that made his shoulders look frighteningly broad, and Tony was almost intimidated for a moment by the fire in the other man’s eyes.

“Why I’m here doesn’t matter,” Strange said, his voice low and even. “What matters is that I was in the right place, at the right time, when Lang showed up on our CCTV feed despite the fact that he was supposed to have been lost during the Snap. And when he told us how he’d gotten here, we realized–”

“What? You realized what, Strange?” Tony realized that his voice was rising, but he couldn’t be bothered enough to care. “You realized that you had another bullshit idea that might help us turn things around? That might suddenly make everything better again, bring all the dead people back to life and we’d all join hands and sing Kumbaya at the end?”

He ignored the way that all four of them visibly flinched when he said _dead people,_ and also tried to ignore the way that phrase felt like a knife in his own gut.

But they were dead. They had to be. He could _not_ give himself false hope to have it shattered again, not when he already had so much here that he loved and couldn’t lose.

“Actually...we kind of did.”

This was the first time the other guy had spoken up during the entire interaction; he’d spent the rest of it sipping his orange juice and gazing wide-eyed back and forth like he was at a tennis match.

“You – what?” Tony had to fight to turn his attention away from Strange, who had somehow remained maddeningly calm even as Tony lost his composure. But a flood of regret hit him as he saw the way Scott and the rest of the team were looking at him – with mild fear, but a heavy amount of sympathy, and something he hated even more: _pity._

“Tony, will you please sit down?” Steve asked softly.

Tony looked down and realized that he’d somehow risen from his chair in the midst of this interaction. He looked back up, and uncomfortably met Steve’s eyes, then Strange’s.

“Please.”

Trying not to look too abashed, Tony sat down. He took a moment to collect himself before turning to the not-quite-stranger sitting on his left.

“I’m sorry, but who the fuck are you?”

“My name is Scott?” The guy raised an almost affronted eyebrow at Tony. “I’m the, uh, guy with the growing and shrinking tech designed by Hank Pym? I'm Ant-Man? Scott Lang?”

Tony continued to stare at him, eyes narrowed.

“Ring any bells?”

“You’re the guy who tried to fight me and my team in Russia by growing to the size of a small building, aren’t you?”

Lang had the grace to look a little guilty. “I...don’t believe that that is relevant, but yeah.”

“O...kay. Why are you here exactly?”

Natasha leaned forward. “Tony, were you not listening? _He survived the Snap._ ”

Tony took a deep breath, screwing his eyes shut. “That’s impossible. You know that’s impossible, Nat, nobody survived the Snap–”

_They couldn’t have. They couldn’t be alive._

“See, that’s the thing, man, I did!”

“Don’t call me _man,_ please–”

“Listen. Five years ago, just before what happened with Thanos, I went to the Quantum Realm,” Lang said, earnestly enough that Tony felt guilty for not at least _trying_ to listen. “These folks told me they’re not quantum physics buffs, but I’m assuming you are, because you’re a buff in every kind of science, apparently. That true?”

“Yes, I know what the Quantum Realm is. You can only access it if you’re subatomic in size, _you’re_ the only person on record who has ever gone in and actually come out, and the fact that you came out was based _completely_ on luck.”

_It had to have been luck. Luck, luck, it couldn’t have been anything else._

“Well – yeah, sure, except for that last part, maybe, but – the point is, I went there. Just before the Snap happened, I went there. Hope...”

Tony felt a twinge of sympathy at the way Lang’s voice trembled when he said the name.

“Hope was supposed to pull me out. But Thanos happened, and uh...according to these guys, she was one of the people who was, uh, lost. Hank, too. So I was, uh, stuck.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “You were stuck for five years in the Quantum Realm? Sorry for your loss, by the way, but that’s scientifically impossible–”

“See, that’s the thing, it _wasn’t_ five years!” Lang’s eyes brightened again, and Tony couldn’t help but understand how he felt. (Yay, science.) “I’m sure you know that time works differently there, but I was only in the Quantum Realm for five _hours._ ”

That was enough to stop Tony for a moment.

_Five hours._

Part of him wanted to sit this guy down and quiz him on everything he’d seen and learned, because _God_ knew this was a scientific anomaly he wanted to get to the bottom of – but the bigger part of him wanted them to get to the point, so that he could prove them wrong. Prove that this was just an illusion, just wishful thinking, that there was nothing here of substance that could get his hopes up, and threaten everything he’d worked so hard to build out of his failure. Nothing that could drag him into an attempt at success, only to drag him down again twice as hard.

_This. Is. Not. Real._

“Get to the point.”

The three of them exchanged a look.

“We thought...” Steve began.

“...that we could find a way to make the Quantum Realm’s time anomalies navigable...” Natasha continued.

“...and perhaps use them to move from our current point in time, to one before the Snap,” Strange finished.

_Not. Real. Not. Real. Not. Real._

“The Infinity Stones still exist in other timelines,” Lang breathed, still a little starry-eyed because _yay, science._ Tony fought not to think about Morgan or...the other name he wouldn’t say. “We can–”

“I just want to thank you folks for dropping by,” Tony interrupted loudly. “It’s not every day one gets to contemplate biting it on an inter-dimensional timescape.”

It might have been rude, but he _knew_ it was going to happen. Because it had happened last time, when he had done everything in his power to keep it from happening. Nothing he was going to do could ever be enough, and he knew that. He’d _accepted_ that. And here they were, trying to fuck that up. When he’d worked _so_ fucking hard to come to terms with it.

_Not. Real. Not. Real. Not. Real._

Natasha sighed. “You’ve got some objections to the plan.”

Tony almost laughed. “So you’re calling it a _plan._ To me, it sounds like an exotic suicide method. Not to mention, it’s impossible.”

“We know what it sounds like,” Lang said.

There was an uncomfortable pause.

Strange spoke next, and his tone was as infuriatingly measured as before. “Stark...Tony...after what we’ve seen, is anything really impossible?”

Tony rounded on him. “The fuck do you mean, what _we’ve_ seen? You haven’t seen shit! You’ve been an Avenger what, five years? But since the Avengers basically don’t exist anymore, you were a _real_ Avenger probably for something like four minutes–”

“Can you please stop acting like a child and listen to what we have to–”

“Quantum fluctuation kinda messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition, can we agree on that?” He grabbed the bottle of orange juice from the center of the table with startling ferocity and brandished it at his ex-friends. “More orange juice?”

_Notrealnotrealnotreal._

When everybody just stared at him, he continued. “In layman’s terms, it means you can cancel your Netflix subscription, because _you’re not coming home._ ”

“I did.”

“Which was a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. Now you want to pull a – what are you calling it?”

“...a time heist.”

“Oh, of course, a time heist, why didn’t we think of this before? Right, because it’s a pipe dream. Who are you again?”

“Still Scott...” Lang said, shrinking further and further into his chair as Tony’s voice continued to rise.

_CAN’T BE REAL. CAN’T BE REALCAN’TBEREALCANTBEREAL_

He could feel his breath coming in short bursts now, and fought to keep himself steady as they all looked at him with _nauseating_ amounts of sympathy.

“The Stones exist in the past,” Steve said.

_No._

“We could get them and _bring them here._ ”

_NO._

Natasha’s eyes glimmered with a hope the likes of which Tony hadn’t seen on anybody’s face in five years, and it sickened him. “We can snap our own fingers.”

_Nonononono–_

“We can _bring everybody back._ ”

“ _OR SCREW IT UP WORSE THAN I ALREADY HAVE!”_

Tony’s yell ended with a ragged gasp, and he realized that not only had he stood up again, but that his chest was heaving and he could feel himself swaying, and he could see everyone looking at him with now undisguised concern.

He would. He knew he would. He’d lost _everybody_ and Thanos had _killed everybody_ and he had _let it happen_ and it was _all his fault and HE WAS A FAILURE._

And it hurt.

And from the looks on their faces, he could tell that all of them knew how much it hurt. Even Lang, even Strange. They’d all failed people too, they’d all lost somebody too.

But for them it had been different. The brunt of the responsibility hadn’t been on their shoulders.

Strangely enough, though, Tony’s shoulders felt oddly light. All his friends knew he blamed himself for what had happened with Thanos, but he hadn’t said it out _loud_ to anyone _–_ even Pepper, really, aside from is occasional late-night musings on the Benatar when he’d been delirious from dehydration. And as he realized he’d finally done so, he felt tears burn his eyes, but also felt like a strange weight had been lifted off of him.

He still felt horribly dizzy, though, as well as embarrassed for having an almost-anxiety attack in front of his friends; so, in a pathetic attempt to draw attention away from that, he hastily snatched up the nearest glass of orange juice and downed it all in one gulp.

He then did a double take, realizing it had been Strange’s.

After taking another moment to drag enough oxygen into himself to form real words, he stuttered out, “Thought you weren’t thirsty.”

Strange smiled softly. “It really is just as yummy as your daughter says.”

Tony felt a flash of warmth bloom in his chest, but it was quickly replaced by a spike of rage that he fought to tamp down. _Bastard._

He made eye contact with everyone at the table, gaze last meeting Steve’s. In it, he saw all of the pain he’d experienced reflected back at him; that carefully crafted acceptance that they’d failed the universe, and that there was nothing that could be done about it. He also saw, to his chagrin and a little bit of jealousy, that that acceptance Steve had worked so hard to build had already been tossed aside, the second he found even the _tiniest_ hint of a possibility that he could fix what Tony had broken.

But that was how it had always been, wasn’t it?

“Gotta say it,” Tony sighed, easing back into his chair, “sometimes I’ve missed that giddy optimism. Sadly, all your high hopes won’t help me if there’s no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said ‘time heist.’ I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise.”

“Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel,” Lang piped up. “No talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events–”

Tony closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Stop, Scott. Stop. Are you telling me that your plan to save the universe is more than loosely based on Back to the Future?”

Lang audibly swallowed. “...no...”

“Good,” Tony sighed, knowing full well that that ‘no’ meant ‘yes’. “Because that would be horseshit. Scientifically speaking, your brother’s picture doesn’t disappear just ‘cause you went to the dance with your mom. That’s not how quantum physics works.”

“We have to take a stand,” Natasha said.

“We did stand,” Tony mumbled, the words catching in his throat. “And yet here we are.”

“Look, Stark,” Lang said. “Can I call you Tony?”

“Please don’t.”

“Tony–”

“Fine.”

“I get that you’ve got a lot on the line, here. You’ve got a wife.”

“She’s not my wife–”

Why did Stephen make eye contact with him when he said that?

“You’ve got a daughter. But I lost someone very important – a lot of us did –”

_So did I, you asshole–_

“–and now we have a chance to save her, and everyone else, and you won’t even–”

“No, Scott. I won’t. Even.”

Before anything more could be said, and even before Tony’s thoughts could run away with him again, a beautiful angel came out onto the porch to rescue him from the hell of this conversation.

“Mommy told me to come save you,” Morgan murmured.

Tony picked his daughter up and held her close, relishing the way she smelled and how she felt in his arms. “Good job. I’m saved.”

He looked back at Steve and the others, and he felt his eyes soften. They had been his best friends; a part of him would always see them as family. And this fucking _sucked,_ having to meet them like this. Having them talk to him like this.

“I wish you were coming here to ask me something else. I’m honestly happy to see you. If you want to stay–”

Steve tried one last time. “Tony, I get it. And I’m happy for you. I am. But this is a second chance.”

“Yeah, well, I got my second chance right here.” Tony lifted his daughter a little higher in his arms, and she smiled absently at the group. “I can’t roll the dice on it.”

They all looked at him, their eyes full of sadness – and once again, all the feelings and regrets he thought he’d locked away came bubbling up to the surface.

All he was able to choke out was, “The table is set for seven. If you don’t talk shop, you’re welcome to stay for lunch.”

And then he took his daughter inside, told her he’d come watch Planet Earth with her in a minute, ran upstairs, shut himself in the master bathroom, and _bawled._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to add more elements of Tony's anxiety, because it's one of my favorite things about his character development. And I also really feel like he would have reacted with more anger and anxiety when Cap and Nat first proposed this plan anyway, because he'd worked so hard to believe there was nothing he could have done...so I basically rewrote this scene from Endgame based on how I think it should've gone. Also with a little bit of Strange x Stark arguing, because of course ;)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you liked, didn't like, or are looking forward to!!!


	4. Takeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stephen Strange and Natasha Romanoff bond over Chinese food and mutual depression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never been good at optimism, but Cap...Cap and Tony, and the entire team taught me how to hope for things, how to always believe there was another option and another way out. And losing that felt like I was losing them.”
> 
> She turned fully toward Stephen, her eyes shining. 
> 
> “They’re my family, Strange. They gave me hope when I didn’t have any. And for that, I’d follow them anywhere.”

Of all the hellish days Stephen Strange had ever experienced (and since the Snap, that had been most of them), this was by far the worst in terms of things he’d had to wrap his head around.

Not only was Bruce Banner now a strange combination of man and monster that could casually wolf down three entire pizzas in one sitting, but Captain America and the Black Widow were taking time travel advice from an ex-con with a fancy shrinking suit...and to top it all off, the world-saving saint Tony Stark seemed to want absolutely nothing to do with this world-saving business – or with Stephen.

He felt himself seethe a little as he remembered the way Stark had treated him, snapped in his direction and dismissed the things he’d said and acted like he didn’t belong, wasn’t one of them. True, it was no less than the treatment he’d received from some of his hospital colleagues, but it still stung – especially from someone he’d looked up to so much. You’d never get him to admit it, but before becoming an Avenger himself, Stephen had spent quite a lot of time tracking the Avengers and their dealings and admiring the scientific breakthroughs they’d made. He’d never been a big fan of the way the police force and the government handled international-scale crises, and honestly, watching these “superheroes” was incredibly refreshing.

Stark especially; he had the heart of a leader, the charisma of a businessman, and the mind of a scientist, all wrapped up into one ~~sexy~~ suave, suit-wearing package. Stephen had spent more than a few nights watching his interviews online, wishing he could lead a team the way Stark did and admiring the confident, easy way he answered questions. Here was a man who was born to save lives – and others believed in him, too, for who he was rather than what he could get out of him.

To this day, Stephen wasn’t sure if he’d looked up to Stark with admiration or jealousy.

But nevertheless, upon becoming an Avenger that illusion had been shattered. He’d realized that beneath the surface was an arrogant asshole, who believed that he was entitled to whatever he wanted because of how much others looked up to him. He took everything he had for granted, disrespected everyone who disagreed, and just _had_ the audacity to look good doing it–

Stephen screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, hard. He would _not_ catch himself thinking lewd thoughts about Tony Stark, or the way he looked in a suit or the way his voice lowered just so when he was irritated. Absolutely not.

But after today, even _that_ illusion had been broken somewhat, and Stephen felt like he’d gotten whiplash from just how difficult it was to get a read on this man. He’d gone from a smooth-talking idol, to a self-absorbed prick, and now...now Stephen wasn’t sure what he was. He’d clenched his fists under the table whenever Stark had talked down to him, and had winced whenever the other man’s voice rose in his team’s direction, but he hadn’t been blind to the way the man’s hands trembled whenever he mentioned the Snap, or his family, or the things he’d left behind.

It was all so _confusing._ The last time Stephen had cared this much about trying to understand someone was Christine, and obviously _that_ hadn’t gone over well; but even then, he hadn’t spent every waking moment with this burning desire to make sense of the things she said, the things she wanted, the way she ticked. Something about Tony Stark drove Stephen absolutely nuts, and his scientific brain wouldn’t rest until he found out exactly what that was.

He texted Natasha.

_Hello, Natasha, are you busy?_

Barely a minute passed before he got a response. (Slow texters were one of Stephen’s pet peeves, so this was one of his favorite things about her.)

**we saw each other a few hours ago**

**did you miss me that much?**

**thought you told me you were gay**

_Very funny. Listen, I was wondering if you had time to drop by my flat tonight? I know it’s late, so if you can’t that’s alright._

**this is sounding more and more like a hookup offer**

**and not a very appealing one if i’m being honest**

Stephen snorted.

 _I’m wounded. But trust me, you’re not my type either – I just wanted to talk. There were some things that happened today that...confused me, and you’re one of the only people I trust to_ _help me make sense of them._

Another minute went by.

**this is about tony isn’t it**

He was blushing. Why was he blushing?

_It may have something to do with Mr. Stark, yes. I know you know him well, and I’m more comfortable with you than with Mr. Rogers, so I figured I’d ask you about it._

**i’ll be over in 10. have you had dinner?**

_Not yet, actually. I was just planning to order takeout._

**say no more. you like chinese?**

Ten minutes later on the dot, Stephen was greeted by the familiar buzzing sound that meant someone was making a request to be let into his building. When he pressed the response button, Natasha’s voice floated out of the speaker.

“I come bearing gifts for a lovesick friend.”

“I’ll just let you up in a second,” Stephen said, smiling in spite of himself.

Natasha greeted Stephen with a chaste but affectionate hug before moving to set her bag of food on his countertop. “I got a little bit of everything, because I wasn’t exactly sure what you liked.”

“I promise I’m not as picky as I look,” Stephen responded. “Do you want me to pay you back?”

“Don’t worry about it, Chinese isn’t that expensive. Is it alright if I sit?”

“Yes, absolutely, make yourself at home.” Stephen gestured around his flat. “Couch, dinner table, barstools, wherever you want.”

“The couch looks comfortable, but I have a feeling eating takeout on leather upholstery would give you an aneurysm – so barstools it is.” Natasha ignored the small mock-frown that creased Stephen’s features at the remark, and lifted herself up onto the nearest stool before helping herself to dumplings and noodles.

Stephen moved to sit down beside her, and piled some food onto his own plate; the day had left him absolutely famished, and Chinese had always been one of his favorites.

They ate in silence for a few minutes – Natasha had clearly sensed how hungry Stephen was from the way he’d pawed at the takeout boxes, and she continued to urge him to have more despite his assurances that he didn’t want seconds.

He relished how easy it was to relax around her; despite the fact that they weren’t particularly close, she had always been one of the members of the Avengers that had been kindest to him. She was always happy to answer his questions, show him around the compound, let him know the way things worked, and even go out for the occasional coffee and a chat. Despite being quite cold and reserved, she was always honest, and a wonderful listener, and he could count on her to give him a reality check when he needed one.

“So, you’re obsessed with Tony now.”

_Case in point._

Stephen almost choked on his dumpling, and Natasha smiled ruefully as she patted him on the back. “Sorry. Should’ve been a bit gentler with my lead-in.”

“I am _not_ ,” Stephen wheezed, trying to ignore the way his friend’s mouth twitched as she watched him struggle for breath. “I’m just...you know I like to understand things, and people, and...”

“He’s the one member of the team who you can’t get a read on,” she finished for him.

“Yes. Exactly.” Still gasping for air, Stephen hopped off his barstool and moved to pour himself some water. “You want anything to drink?”

“Some wine would be nice, if you have any.”

“You want something stronger?” Stephen suggested, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Feel like we deserve it after the day we’ve had.”

“ _That_ was a regular Wednesday for me, to be perfectly honest, but I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Natasha answered, smiling appreciatively as Stephen poured each of them a glass of scotch. “Feeling fancy tonight?”

“You could say that,” Stephen said, smiling at her over the rim of his glass as they knocked their drinks together and each took a sip. “It feels well-deserved, to be honest.”

“For spending an entire hour talking to Tony? Didn’t realize you hated him that much.”

Stephen almost choked again, sputtering as his scotch burnt his throat. “You just said you thought I was obsessed with him!”

“You’re terrible at taking jokes, do you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Stephen groaned, wiping his watering eyes.

They sipped their drinks in silence for another few moments before Stephen spoke again.

“Natasha, does Stark have...an anxiety disorder?”

Natasha set her glass of scotch back on the counter and took a deep breath, pausing for a few moments before answering. “Tony is...complicated. You have to understand, he’s been through far more than most of us. I assume you’ve heard the stories about how he became Iron Man—”

“I have. I felt like a kid reading hero comics again.”

She smiled halfheartedly. “Well...that was just the tip of the iceberg for him. He’s arrogant, sure, and that’s something that’s driven us all nuts about him forever – but he used to be much worse. He’d drink all the time, spend all his money, get in fights, push away the people he cared about most.”

“Jesus.”

“And every time he felt like he’d failed somebody, or felt like evil had won out or like he wasn’t doing enough...he’d get insanely angry. He’d lash out at all of us, and he’d start shaking, and he’d storm off, and then hours later we’d find him shut up in a room somewhere crying, or struggling to breathe.”

Stephen swallowed, knowing the feeling all too well.

“And the things he’s seen...most of us have been there with him, but they affect him differently, and he’s seen them in a way no one else has – as the person who was leading it all, as the person who was meant to make sure everything went correctly. And when it doesn’t...”

“...he blames himself,” Stephen finished.

Natasha nodded. “He’s had trouble sleeping for nearly ten years. Has nightmares most nights, about anything and everything he’s experienced. Not like there’s any shortage of terrifying memories to choose from.”

“A textbook case of PTSD and panic disorder, then.”

“Combined with the aftereffects of longstanding addiction issues, parental trauma, and a moderate to severe superiority complex, yes. But he’s always hated those sorts of labels.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well...the way he puts it, how can you just slap a little three-word definition on the way someone’s brain operates? It’s so complicated, there’s so many layers, there’s so much weight behind every single thought and action, and everything is connected. The human brain has always been one of his favorite things to understand, and he feels like it’s far too complicated to be defined so clumsily.”

Another sentiment that, to his surprise, Stephen shared. “I see.”

“Most of this is common knowledge,” Natasha went on. “That’s another one of the things that’s fucked him up, I guess.”

Stephen sighed. “That part I definitely understand. Having your entire personal life constantly on display, and having other people act like they’re suddenly entitled to weigh in on everything you do – it’s hell. I don’t know how you all do it.”

Appraising him with mild surprise, Natasha responded, “Apparently you’ve been doing it too.”

Chuckling a little bit, Stephen said, “Not nearly to the degree that you all have to. But I admit, having to claw your way to the top of an extremely competitive and high-paying field, and having to deal with all of the resentment and doubt from the outside world that comes with it is...difficult.”

“Maybe one day you and Tony can talk about that,” Natasha suggested. “Might help him see you a bit differently.”

“ _Why_ does he treat me the way he does?” Stephen burst out, turning fully to face his redheaded friend. “I don’t – I understand potential discomfort with a new team member, or feeling threatened by the presence of another scientist, but that doesn’t seem like – like reason enough to—”

Natasha held up a hand to stop him. “No. I’ll explain everything that you want to know about Tony’s backstory, but anything to do with your relationship is something between you and him.”

“ _Relationship,_ the man hardly even acknowledges that I exist,” Stephen grumbled.

“I’m sure loverboy will notice you eventually,” Natasha teased, poking Stephen with one of her chopsticks. “Maybe he’s just playing hard to get!”

“You _know_ that’s not what I meant. He drives me just as crazy as I drive him.”

“That’s how all good romances start though, isn’t it?”

“Ugh. I’m going to get another drink so that I don’t have to listen to you anymore.”

Nevertheless, Natasha’s chuckles warmed his insides as he moved to refill his glass of scotch.

“You want another?”

“Mm.” She shook her head. “You sure you’re alright to have a second drink, though? This is surprisingly strong.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. I would _not_ object to getting blacked out,” Stephen said, flopping back onto his stool and downing the majority of his drink in one gulp.

“You _definitely_ can’t afford to do that, not when we have so much work ahead of us.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But a man can dream.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to get shitfaced when this is all over, I promise you,” Natasha joked.

A silence settled between them for a moment.

“Do you really think this... _is_ all going to be over?” Stephen asked softly. “Do you think we can bring back everything we’ve lost?”

Natasha stilled, and her fingers tightened on her glass. For a long moment, she stared into space, lost in thought, as she mulled over how to reply.

“I...don’t know.”

He could sense that she had more to say, so he remained quiet.

“I share Tony’s reservations, as surprising as that sounds. I know how difficult it has to be to accept that you’ve, uh...failed. And then, just as you think you’re getting comfortable with it – or as comfortable as you can be, I guess – something comes along and gives you hope again, when you kept promising yourself you wouldn’t have any.” Her hand trembled a bit as she lifted the scotch to her lips. “It’s painful.”

Stephen nodded. He wasn’t sure he understood, but he felt the pain rolling off of her in waves, and he saw it in the hunch of her shoulders and the bags beneath her eyes. He realized how exhausted she looked, how ashen her skin was and how long it had been since she’d washed her hair. She’d lost weight, and her legs were almost always shaking.

“But, at the same time, hope is something I’ve had a really hard time living without,” Natasha murmured. “I’ve never been good at optimism, but Cap...Cap _and_ Tony, and the entire team taught me how to hope for things, how to always believe there was another option and another way out. And losing that felt like I was losing them.”

She turned fully toward Stephen, her eyes shining.

“They’re my family, Strange. They gave me hope when I didn’t have any. And for that, I’d follow them anywhere.”

Stephen didn’t like hugs. He knew Natasha didn’t either. So he reached out, and pressed his pinky finger against hers where it rested on the countertop. And, like that, they sat in silence and sipped their scotch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha has always been one of my favorite characters (I'm absolutely PUMPED for the Black Widow movie, whenever it comes out), and I always felt as though she and Strange would get along. They're both cool, collected, very smart in their own separate ways, and Natasha doesn't have that arrogant hotheadedness that Tony does that makes it so hard for him and Stephen to get along. I really like the idea of these two introverts finding comfort in each other, and Natasha helping Stephen understand more about Tony. So, that's exactly what I did!
> 
> NOTE: My interpretation of Tony's PTSD, panic disorder, and other mental illnesses is based off of my analysis of the movies and my own experience as someone with anxiety and depression who has experienced addiction issues and panic attacks. I know it is not necessarily a representation of what everybody goes through, but I feel it accurately summarizes quite a bit about Tony's character. Please be respectful, and thank you for reading!!


	5. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I squish a five-year-long existential crisis into six or so pages. Someone give Tony Stark a f*cking hug, man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What’re you reading?” Tony asked, in a futile attempt to think of something to say that wasn’t the statement itching to jump off his tongue.
> 
> “Just a book about composting.”
> 
> “What’s...new in composting?”
> 
> “Oh, it’s a really interesting science, actually—”
> 
> “I think I solved it.”
> 
> And there it was. The admission that he’d been holding back, as if keeping it inside would make it any less real.

The framed photo of that name that he wouldn’t say felt like it was following him as he did dishes.

Tony was fine being a stay-at-home dad. Honestly, he was. Homeschooling Morgan was one of his absolute favorite things, and he had plenty of time to do company stuff and tinker in his workshop in the late hours of the night. Wasn’t like he could sleep anyway.

He loved his life. He wouldn’t change a thing about it.

_You sure about that, Mr. Stark?_

The voice almost made him drop a plate as his head whipped back to the photo on the windowsill.

No one there.

“Yeah, I am, actually,” he muttered to himself anyway. “I’m extremely happy where I am.”

_I don’t really think that’s true, Mr. Stark._

“Shut up, kid.”

Great. Now Tony’s was talking to himself. Not the weirdest of his mental illness manifestations, but for some reason very embarrassing.

His panic attack from earlier that day had made it incredibly difficult for him to keep his mind clear while he and Morgan went through her oceans workbook, and had resulted in him ending her lessons early for the day so that he could go for a walk through the woods and clear his head. Pepper always told him that fresh air would clear his head. It didn’t, but he did it anyway because Pepper had suggested it.

He’d made it home before dark and started cleaning house to busy himself – but now here he was, with that _awful_ fucking conversation still weighing on his mind, and with his thoughts at war with themselves as he stared at that framed fucking photo of the son Tony never had.

His smile reminded him _so much of Morgan._

He slammed the last dish onto the dishrack with so much force that it shattered, and he swore as the porcelain cut his hand. Running his hand under the sink water, he glanced resentfully at the picture, at the kid in a too-small Decathlon tee shirt with his arm around Tony and his Edith glasses perched at a jaunty angle on his hair that was always messy, no matter how many times he brushed it...

Steve’s voice echoed in his mind, and then Natasha’s. Then Lang’s, then...Strange’s.

_The stones exist in the past._

_We can snap our own fingers._

_This is a second chance._

This _was_ his second chance. He’d believed that when he’d told it to them...hadn’t he?

_We can bring everybody back._

They could bring _him_ back.

_After what we’ve seen, is anything really impossible?_

Tony closed his eyes, so tightly that they hurt. What he’d seen was everything that had destroyed him, everything that had turned him into the anxiety-riddled wreck that he was today. What he’d _seen_ was what woke him up at night in cold sweats, what kept him from being able to talk to Pepper without yelling sometimes, what kept him from _spending time with his child._

Tony’s footsteps carried him down the front porch steps without thinking, still clutching the photo in his hand. He set it on one of his workbenches and moved over to one of his consoles, his hands building holo models almost on their own. Penrose diagrams, wormholes, and star-shaped capacitors bloomed before him in various shades of blue and white, even as everything they’d said, and everything he’d worked so hard to build, flashed in front of him.

He thought of what he had now.

This house. This family. _Peace,_ finally.

He thought of what he’d lost – what, according to his old family, he had a chance to bring back.

Half the world. Joy, laughter, color in the streets. _Him._

“Friday, you up?”

A gentle female voice floated down from all around him. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ve had a mild inspiration, like to see if it checks out.” _What the fuck was he doing._ “I’d like to run one last sim before we pack it in for the night.” _What the literal, actual_ fuck _was he doing._ “This time in the shape of a Mobius Strip, inverted.”

“Processing.”

Tony knew why Steve and the others had come to see him. He knew they couldn’t do this without him; that again, whether he liked it or not, the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.

The Mobius Strip formed in front of him.

“Alright, give me the eigenvalue of that particle, factoring in spectral decomp.”

Friday obliged.

“Run it. That’ll take a second.”

Friday obliged again.

Almost as an afterthought, as what he posed as a reassurance to his AI but what felt more like a reassurance to himself, he added, “And don’t worry if it doesn’t pan out, I’m just kind of...”

The capacitor started glowing. A holo-man drifted into a circular wormhole, looping...and returned to the place it had first left a moment later.

“Model rendered.”

A small, tiny part of him, the part of him that spoke in the voice of a teenage webslinger who’d disintegrated in his arms five years ago, piped up.

_Told you it was gonna work, Mr. Stark. You’re the smartest person I know._

Something heavy settled on Tony’s heart, but at the same time something felt as though it had been lifted away.

Five years ago he’d lost everything, had lost control and had lost his friends and had lost his battle to save the universe, and had spent five years trying to rebuild a semblance of stability. Now it was spiraling out of his hands again. He was losing everything he’d built, _again._ But this felt different; rather than a crushing defeat, a heaviness in every single one of his limbs that threatened to pull him apart, this felt exhilarating – like his stomach dropping away as he went down a terrifying rollercoaster. The track was rusty and the wheels could break off, sure, but _fuck_ if a part of him didn’t feel...like it was where he belonged.

He didn’t dare to get his hopes up, but watching the little holo-man swirl in and out of the wormhole almost made him wonder...if he’d be able to see...

“Shit,” he murmured.

“Shit,” a young voice echoed back at him. Not in his head this time.

Tony turned to see his very favorite angel on earth standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing up?”

“Shit,” Morgan said again, firmly.

Tony grinned. “That’s a Mommy word. She coined it, she’s the only one who gets to say it.”

“Why are _you_ up?” Morgan asked.

“I’ve got some important shit going on!” he squawked jokingly, relishing the way his daughter’s brows knit together as she realized he’d just said the _Mommy word._ “Nah, nah, I...just had something on my mind,” Tony said, feeling emotions warring in his chest as he met his daughter’s eyes again. _What if I lost this?_

Something indecipherable passed between them for a moment before Morgan said slyly, “Was it juice pops?”

A sweet lifeline. “Correct. Great minds think alike. What kind do you want?”

“Orange.”

“Ah, my favorite. You better hold on tight to that juice pop, otherwise I’ll steal it from you.”

“You better not.”

Tony picked his daughter up as he wandered out of his workshop and back into the house, trying his best not glance back at the floating wormhole model still lazily spinning next to that framed photo.

He held Morgan close, breathing in the way she smelled and the way her hands fit around the back of his neck, the way she giggled as he booped her nose, the way she sighed as she enjoyed her orange juice pop on her way upstairs.

 _I will_ not _lose this._

They sat in silence for a little bit on Morgan’s bed as she made quick work of her treat, Tony trying to ignore the way tears pricked the back of his eyes every time he made eye contact with his daughter.

“You done?” he asked, nodding to her juice pop. Swiping it from her and chomping the last bit off the popsicle stick, he added, “Now you are.”

Morgan wrinkled her nose in a faux pout for just a moment. “Tell me a story.”

“Once upon a time, Maguna went to bed. The end.”

She wrinkled her nose again, properly this time, but was still chuckling. “That was a bad story.”

Tony had to resist the urge to hold her close and never let her go. He settled for running a hand over her hair instead, cupping her chin and looking deep into her eyes.

He could tell himself that he hadn’t realized it was possible to love someone this much, but...

“Love you tons.”

Tons couldn’t even begin to cover it.

“I love you three thousand.”

Tony almost died right there.

“Wow.”

Before he could crumble completely, he stood up and moved to Moragn’s doorway. “Three thousand, that’s crazy,” he murmured.

He flicked off Morgan’s light and slipped out of her room. “Go to sleep, or I’ll sell all your toys.”

Her parting giggles followed Tony out as he closed the door behind him, resting his forehead against it.

He took several deep breaths.

After the Snap, he didn’t think he could feel pain like that again.

And yet here it was, a different kind but yet exactly the same, like his soul was being pulled in two different directions and was slowly being ripped down the middle. And if he didn’t choose which way to go soon, it would kill him; but either option would eventually kill him too.

He went back downstairs, considering going out to the workshop again and staring at his holo-models for a few more hours until his eyes started to bleed or until suddenly Friday told him that she’d come up with a new schematic that actually disproved his theory. Perhaps that would ease the murderously heavy mountain of guilt that was now sitting on his shoulders.

But instead, upon entering the living room, he found Pepper, curled up on the couch, reading a book, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world. But he knew Pepper in a way that not a lot of people did, and he could tell by the hard line of her shoulders and the tenseness in her stance that she was in a lot of emotional pain too. He had told her the subject matter of his lunch conversation, after all.

“Out like a light,” he said, referencing Morgan. “Don’t want to make it a competition, but she loves _me_ three thousand.”

Pepper glanced up at him. “That’s up there.”

“I believe you were somewhere in the six to nine hundred range,” he continued smugly, relishing the way Pepper’s features smoothed in a smile.

“Oh, is that so?”

“What’re you reading?” Tony asked, in a futile attempt to think of something to say that wasn’t the statement itching to jump off his tongue.

“Just a book about composting.”

“What’s...new in composting?”

“Oh, it’s a really interesting science, actually—”

“I think I solved it.”

And there it was. The admission that he’d been holding back, as if keeping it inside would make it any less real.

Pepper looked up, and she met Tony’s eyes.

“Just so we’re both talking about the same thing—”

“Time travel.”

Even as he said it, the words sounded ridiculous. It really was an insane, exotic method of suicide. And yet...here he was.

Pepper’s expression was unreadable, but he could hear the sincerity in her voice when she said, “That’s amazing.”

“Yeah.”

“And terrifying.”

He snorted. “To say the least.”

He took a seat beside her, and watched as her expression became unfocused. Watched as a much more abridged version of his own dilemma took place behind her eyes.

Part of him _prayed_ that she would tell him what everyone else had refused to, that she’d tell him to stay here with them and forget about all of this, to be happy with what he had instead of risking it on a million-to-one gamble.

But one thing he adored _and_ hated about Pepper was that she understood and accepted shitty odds; she always had. She’d wanted to marry Tony on the condition that he would stop playing with those odds, but when he’d told her he couldn’t she’d accepted it. And that had been one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for him, but now, it _burned._

“We got really lucky—”

“I know.” He was practically begging her to keep going.

“Not everybody did,” Pepper said slowly.

“I can’t help everybody.”

“Except...” She turned to face him fully. “It sort of seems like you can.”

“Not if I stopped right here,” Tony insisted. _Please, say it._

Now it was Pepper’s turn to snort. “Tony, trying to get you to stop is one of the few failures of my life.”

“I could just lock the lab, put it in a trunk, sink it to the bottom of the lake, and go to bed,” Tony said, half-joking. Still pressing, just a little bit.

Pepper, as she often did, saw right through it. She laced her fingers with Tony’s, and her hands were warm.

“But could you rest?”

And there it was. There it was, that fucking _acceptance,_ that thing that Pepper had always had when it felt like no one else would – that feeling like Tony could fuck up in a million ways and she would still be right behind him in whatever he decided to do. He wanted her to scream at him, to beg him not to throw all this away, but he knew that what he loved most about her would also be what pushed her to say yes. Because she understood him, and she knew him.

Part of both of them had always known Tony wouldn’t be able to stop being Iron Man when he’d proposed to her. Part of both of them had expected it to end, because again, it wasn’t just what he did, it was _who he was._

And she knew, as she always did. Everyone knew what the right thing to do was. Even Tony did.

But by God, he was fucking scared. He got scared a lot, but for the sake of keeping up his cool-guy image he didn’t share it with anybody, even himself – but now, he couldn’t help but want to shout to the entire world that he was insanely, incredibly, piss-your-pants _terrified._

He loved Pepper. He loved his house. He loved Morgan than he loved anything else in the entire world. But...he and everybody else had the chance to bring back everything else they had loved.

They could _save the world,_ Tony thought to himself with a humorless chuckle, still sitting up on the living room couch long after Pepper had gone to bed.

He didn’t believe for a second that they wouldn’t all die if they tried to complete this _time heist_ thing. But he knew, at the very least, that he had some power here. That he was in control, that he could orchestrate a hell of a fight for them to go out with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was far easier to write than I expected it to be. I'm not too happy with it, because this feels like a much bigger and more difficult decision than I made it out to be, but I don't want to drag out Tony's trauma for too long in the beginning; instead, I'll figure out ways to work it in throughout the story.
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying it so far, and I hope you enjoy the Morgan & Tony content I have in this chapter :) those bits are always my favorite to write!


	6. Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which time travel is tested, pizza is ordered, and Tony Stark slams Stephen Strange against things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tony, at least apologize to the guy for almost choking him to death,” Rogers suggested.
> 
> “I’m not apologizing for shit, I’ve got trust issues and he looked extremely suspicious,” Tony responded petulantly. “Don’t you think he always looks suspicious? And he’s too tall, I don’t trust that. I don’t trust people who make me have to tilt my head back to talk to them.”
> 
> “Christ, Tony, you’re a piece of work.”
> 
> “Thank you,” Stark responded, sharing an unreadable smile with Rogers.
> 
> “I think the term you’re looking for is asshole,” Stephen muttered under his breath.

“I’m letting you know right now that this isn’t going to work.”

“As much as we appreciate your input, Strange, please let me handle this, I’ve been on this team far longer than you have.”

“You’re really going to let a discussion of _seniority_ get in the way of the fact that the system you’re using is clearly very flawed—”

“Flawed? What does he mean, flawed?” Lang squeaked, pausing with his quantum suit’s helmet halfway on.

“Listen, wasn’t your degree in the _medical_ side of science, Doc?” Banner asked, with more than a little derision in his voice. “I have seven PhD’s, an MD, the Hans Bethe Award for Physics, and I’m personal friends with Bill Nye the Science Guy. We’re good.”

“Yeah, and you look like _that_ on purpose,” Lang muttered.

Banner’s big green face twisted in irritation. “Everyone’s a critic.”

“I am telling you now, we can’t do this without Stark,” Stephen insisted.

“And _I_ am telling _you_ now, buddy, this team only comes to me when they know _Stark_ isn’t gonna pull through on something,” Banner shot back. “Sucks to be Iron Man’s understudy, but they know that my brain is the next biggest here, alright? Let me do what I know how to do.”

Before Stephen could respond, Natasha and Captain Rogers emerged from outside the complex.

“Breakers are set, emergency generator’s on standby.”

Banner nodded in approval. “Good. If we blow the grid, I don’t want to lose Tiny here back in the ‘50s.”

Lang nearly dropped his helmet. “Excuse me?”

Natasha wrinkled her nose. “He’s kidding.”

“I’m kidding,” Banner hastily agreed.

As soon as Lang turned around again, Natasha leaned in toward Banner. “You were kidding, right?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. We’re attempting _time travel._ Either it’s all a joke, or none of it is.”

“Jesus,” Stephen groaned.

“We’re good!” Banner said loudly. “Helmet on, Scott.”

Dubiously, Lang put on his helmet. Stephen met his gaze through the eyeholes and gave him a sympathetic look; aside from the fact that Lang’s adventures into the quantum realm made him their unlucky time machine guinea pig, he was taken almost _less_ seriously than Stephen was by the rest of the team.

He made a mental note to buy the poor guy a beer sometime.

“Okay,” Banner said, bringing them both back to the present. “I’m going to send you back one week, give you an hour to look around, then bring you back in ten seconds. Make sense?”

“Perfectly not confusing,” Lang choked out.

Banner’s meaty green fingers flew over his control panel that, whether Stephen liked to admit it or not, he knew he’d never be able to make sense of. The strange copper coils in the van behind Lang began to glow a frightening orange, and Stephen felt the pit in his stomach grow even larger.

“Good luck, Scott,” Rogers said, before Stephen could speak up again. “You’ve got this.”

Lang’s chest puffed up immediately, and Stephen smothered a laugh behind his hand at the way the other man idolized Captain America. “Yes, I do, Captain America. Yes I—”

And then Banner pulled a lever, and Lang shrank into nothingness.

Stephen felt his breath catch in his chest. “Don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that.”

Natasha grinned at him sideways. “Says the man who wears a sentient cape and can carve symbols in the air with fire.”

“We’ve all got a few quirks.”

“Counting down from three, two, one...”

A scrawny preteen reappeared in front of them, arms and legs swimming in the quantum suit he had on, and Stephen wasn’t sure whether to laugh or smack Banner.

“Uh, guys?” the child squeaked. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“Is that Scott?” Natasha choked.

“Probably...?” Banner responded, as he scrambled to hit a few more buttons and the child shrank into nothing again.

“Bring him back!” Rogers yelped.

Banner flipped a switch, but this time an old, decrepit man with white hair popped into existence, the quantum suit still on but looking distinctively more worn out.

“Oh, my back!” old Lang groaned.

“What the hell is going on?” Natasha snapped.

“Banner, get it under control,” Stephen urged.

“I got it, I know exactly what’s going on,” Banner loudly reassured them, even as the hum of the machine continued to increase. “Pretty much.”

Old Lang disappeared in a flash, and Banner fumbled for a pencil in his hand as his enormous fingers continued to miss the buttons he was trying to press. Stephen was this close to throttling the man, if not for the fact that 1) he knew Banner could break him in half with a flick of his pink, and 2) he was currently operating a makeshift time machine out of the back of a van.

There was a flash of light, and an _infant_ – quite literally, a two-year-old child – appeared.

Natasha gasped, “Oh my God.”

“It’s a baby,” Rogers said, stunned.

Banner shrugged. “It’s Scott.”

“As a _baby!_ ” Stephen hissed through gritted teeth.

Banner hit a button, and Baby Lang disappeared. The thrum of their machine grew to a terrifying volume. “When I tell you, kill the power.”

It grew, and grew, the van beginning to tremble with the force of it all, and light pulsated along the copper coils on the inside. And just when Stephen thought the entire thing was going to explode, Banner shouted, “NOW!”

Natasha slammed her hand down on the kill switch, and normal Lang, quantum suit and all, reappeared on the pad for just a moment before stumbling off it.

“Somebody peed my pants,” he said mournfully. “I don’t know if it was baby-me or old-me. Or just me-me.”

Rogers threw his hands up in defeat. “Banner, you told us you knew what you were doing.”

“Steve, you have to understand what we’re messing with here—”

“You did say you had it all figured out,” Natasha pointed out.

“I _understand,_ but it’s an extremely complicated science—”

“Seven PhDs,” Stephen added, cocking an eyebrow when Banner’s gaze darkened.

He raised a huge finger, and for a second Stephen was worried that he’d made a mistake and was about to be tossed across the room – but after an agonizing moment, Banner deflated.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. This is a trial process for me, too. And what we’re attempting...it’s not easy. And all of the scientific part, which is one of the most important parts, is all on _my_ shoulders. I know all of you understand what that feels like...and I’m just one guy.”

Rogers and Natasha had the grace to look a little guilty, and even Stephen felt a bit bad.

Lang sidled up to Banner and clapped him on the back – or rather, the middle of his spine, which was about as high as the other man could reach. “S’alright, Bruce. We’re all doing our best.”

Banner glanced appreciatively at Lang. “Sorry for turning you into a twelve-year-old. And a ninety-three-year-old. And, uh, a baby.”

“Let’s just...let’s all take a break for lunch,” Rogers suggested. “We can look at this with fresh eyes after we’ve all eaten something. Bruce, will six meat lover’s pizzas be enough for you?”

“Throw in a veggie lover’s and we’re good.”

Stephen glanced after Rogers as he exited the compound, his shoulders hung low in defeat.

He turned when he heard Banner sigh behind him.

“Fuck, man, this is why I wish we could leave things up to Steve and Tony all the time,” he muttered to himself, seemingly unaware that Stephen was listening. “I’m not a leader.”

“But you’re one of the smartest people on the team,” Natasha reassured him.

“I know, but I fuckin’ freeze up whenever I’m under pressure and I know everyone’s counting on me. That was always Tony’s thing, not mine. I’ve got no idea how those two do it.”

“You’re still smarter than most of this team put together, you know,” Stephen chimed in, striding over to the two of them and fighting the urge to shy away when Banner’s gaze was turned on him. “And Stark might be one of the big wigs of the Avengers, but you’re an asset in your own right.” He glanced at Natasha, who was smiling slightly at him. “All of us are.”

Banner sighed again. “Pretty shitty excuse for a motivational speech, but you’ll learn how to do that if you spend more time on the team.” He glanced sideways at Stephen, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry about, uh, earlier.”

Wrinkling his nose at the thought of his medical degree being insulted, Stephen responded stiffly, “It’s...alright. You’re under a lot of pressure.”

Natasha smirked. “That looked difficult.”

“Not used to shelving your pride, eh, pal?” Banner said with a snort. “Makes sense as to why you and Tony hate each other so much.”

“I don’t—”

Before he could respond, Banner’s phone pinged in his back pocket. “Ah, pizza’s here. I’ll be in the kitchen if either of you need anything.”

He lumbered off, leaving Stephen and Natasha alone – where they held each other’s gazes for one long moment before promptly dissolving into quiet laughter.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Stephen wheezed.

“Part of me feels like we’re all in some kind of insane lucid dream. Or an asylum, or a simulation, or something like that,” Natasha chuckled.

“Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened to Stark’s team,” Stephen said, hiccupping himself back to seriousness.

Natasha’s face fell. “Not his anymore though, is it.”

“Hasn’t been his for a while, from what I hear,” Stephen said, leaning back against one of the metal crates stacked near their time van. (That was still _so weird_ to think about.)

His redheaded companion wrinkled her nose. “That’s complicated.”

Stephen snorted. “Is anything not, when it comes to Tony Stark?”

“Not really.” She glanced outside at Steve’s silhouette through the translucent glass of the compound doors, where he appeared to be speaking to another man. Pizza delivery guy, maybe. “It’s um...been strange ever since Germany. He and Steve have learned to work together again, but there’s still a lot of history there between them. Years of it, actually. Steve...Steve and I _both_ hid a lot of things from Tony that we shouldn’t have.”

“Family doesn’t hide things from each other,” Stephen said thoughtfully, as Natasha turned to meet his eyes.

“Learned that a bit too late,” she said. “But it is what it is now. We’ve done things without Tony before, we can to do this without him too—”

Before she could finish her sentence, a black wristband on her arm pinged loudly, and a holo-message appeared on her screen. It was almost entirely in what looked to be Japanese, but as Natasha quickly read through it, her breath quickened and her hands started to shake.

When she looked back up again, her eyes were glossy.

“Bad news?” Stephen asked carefully.

“N-no. Ah, maybe.” She glanced at the message again, before minimizing it and stuffing both hands in her pockets. “It’s...it’s someone we’ve been looking for. I’ve gotten some intel on where he might be.”

“A criminal?” Stephen probed.

Natasha smiled, half bitter and half hopeful. “An old friend.”

She mumbled a hurried apology and a goodbye, requesting that Stephen tell the others where she’d gone if they asked, and he was left alone.

With nothing else to do, Stephen turned his gaze to the time machine, its coils now dark. He didn’t dare touch the control panel for fear that Banner would strangle him, but chose instead to inspect the machine itself. He wondered how Hank Pym had managed to build this thing inside of a van.

Frowning, he noticed a set of wires poking out of a small panel on the van’s metal floor, very distinctly looking frayed and as though they weren’t where they were supposed to be. He was dead terrified about interacting with this machine in any way – medicine and magic were his two realms of comfort, not mechanics – but this seemed small and simple enough, and if something was clearly broken and an easy fix, no one would mind if he did something about it.

Doing his best to be graceful as he folded his tall frame into the van, Stephen crouched down beside the panel and very gently pried it open, wincing as a puff of smoke wafted up toward him and he examined the mess of broken wires. This might not have been exactly what kept fucking with Lang’s age, but it definitely hadn’t helped.

Stephen’s hands went to his throat reflexively, and he winced when he remembered that the Eye of Agamotto was no longer there. He winced again when he remembered how the Time Stone had glinted on Thanos’s gauntlet...how _he’d_ given it to him.

Shaking the thoughts off and remembering that he needed to be clear-headed in order to perform even simple magic, Stephen sat down cross-legged on the van floor and took a deep breath, filling his head with white noise and thoughts of the wires he wanted to fix.

From being unfamiliar and frightening, magic had become even more of a comfort than surgery to Stephen; sometimes, when he was in his apartment and having yet another breakdown about the Snap and the hopelessness of it all, he’d close his eyes and think about flowing water and watch light pour from his hands, molding it into different shapes and watching it dance across his knuckles. And of course, it didn’t cure anything, but it made him feel better. More in control.

He sucked in one more deep breath and raised his hands, making circular motions in the air with two of his fingers and smiling as a set of glowing geometric shapes sparked to life in front of him. They pulsed as he guided them towards the wiring, and with one last breath he began to turn back time.

Slowly, very slowly, the broken wires wriggled, straining up toward the light in Stephen’s hands like flowers turning toward the sun. They curled inward upon themselves, sparking and smoking, and he winced as a few sparks burned his hands, but held steady as they underwent a reversal of the process that had broken them in the first place.

First the two halves of the red wire connected, then the yellow. After that it was just the green, and finally the blue, and he would have done this one small thing to make him feel less useless—

“What the hell are you doing in there?”

Stephen jumped in fright and toppled out of the van, his magic fizzling out with a distinctive _pop_ as he landed in a heap on the platform that Lang had been standing on just half an hour earlier.

That voice was incredibly familiar...but he’d been sure he wouldn’t hear it again.

“I asked you a question! Get the hell up and answer me!” A hand grabbed Stephen by the collar and lifted him up with almost Hulk-like force, and then he was nose-to-nose with Tony Asshole Stark. “Sabotaging the machine, are we? I always thought there was something fishy about you and your magical symbols and shit—”

“Excuse me? I was _helping_ ,” Stephen spat, struggling in the shorter man’s grip. “Get _off_ me—”

“I know what sabotage looks like when I see it,” Stark hissed back, throwing Stephen backward. He hit a stack of crates behind him _hard_ , and tried to hide the fact that it knocked the wind out of him – but he didn’t even have time to recover before Stark was in front of him again, slamming him backward and getting right up in his face. “Believe me, I’m more familiar with it than you’ll ever be—”

“Hey, Tony, I – whoa, what’s going on here?” That was a much more welcome voice, and one that Stephen _actually_ expected. “Come on, now, cool it—”

“This asshole was trying to—”

“I was trying to _fix the wires_!” Stephen choked out, gasping for air. “Let _go_!”

“What wires? Everything’s all in order in there, Steve checked,” Stark said, “and I trust him a _hell_ of a lot than I’m ever gonna trust you—”

“Tony, he’s being serious,” Rogers piped up.

Stark’s grip loosened as he glanced over at Rogers, who was crouching next to the wiring panel in awe.

“Look at this. These wires are broken – I didn’t even notice that during my preliminary inspections. Looks to me like he was trying to fix them.”

“And how would you know shit about fixing wiring that complex?” Stark asked, whipping back around to glare at Stephen again.

Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore the fact that Tony Stark was still very, very close to him ( _and_ close to strangling him), Stephen responded, “I _know_ that time machine programming is well above my pay grade, so I wasn’t going to try and mess with anything else, but my magical abilities work easily enough on a set of broken wires.”

Stark stared at Stephen, hands no longer on his collar but instead pressed flat just below his collarbones, and looked as though he were seriously considering punching Stephen in the face. For one long, charged moment, Stephen really thought that he was going to, and tensed up in preparation to fight back—

“Oh, come on, Tony, let him up, I trust him,” Rogers said, jogging over to the two of them and pulling Stark’s elbow.

“You’re one to talk about trust, aren’t you,” Stark mumbled – but it was without the usual barbed tone he had when he was addressing Rogers, and he pulled away from Stephen almost instantly at the other man’s request.

Stephen narrowed his eyes – last he’d heard, Stark and Rogers had years and years of unsolved bitterness and history between them. That much had been made _very_ clear from their last interaction, but now apparently everything had been put aside and they were suddenly buddy-buddy – and was that a new _shield_ Rogers was holding?

Getting up and straightening his clothes, Stephen glanced at Stark mistrustfully as the other man stalked over to the half-fixed wiring panel. “This looks like textbook sabotage to me, Cap.”

“If you must know, I was reversing time on the wires because they’d been fried when I noticed them, and I wasn’t sure if there was a way to fix them other than using magic,” Stephen growled, eyeing Stark warily as the other man turned to him. “And may I ask what the _hell_ you’re doing here?”

“I’m here to save your asses,” Stark responded airily, as though their conversation from the day before hadn’t even happened. “I figured out time travel.”

Stephen raised an eyebrow. “Did you now?”

Without missing a beat, Stark pulled a star-shaped device out of his pocket and held it up so it caught the sunlight. “Fully-functioning time-space GPS, created by yours truly. Much fancier than anything you could come up with, I’m sure, Twinkle Fingers.”

“Do _not_ call me that.”

“Tony, at least apologize to the guy for almost choking him to death,” Rogers suggested.

“I’m not apologizing for shit, I’ve got trust issues and he looked extremely suspicious,” Tony responded petulantly. “Don’t you think he always looks suspicious? And he’s too tall, I don’t trust that. I don’t trust people who make me have to tilt my head back to talk to them.”

“Christ, Tony, you’re a piece of work.”

“Thank you,” Stark responded, sharing an unreadable smile with Rogers.

“I think the term you’re looking for is _asshole_ ,” Stephen muttered under his breath.

Stark rounded on Stephen again. “Watch it, Sparky, just because you did _one_ helpful thing doesn’t mean I won’t still fuck you up—”

“Will you both just _relax?_ ” Rogers said, exasperated. “Strange, you can finish fixing the wiring, and then Tony has some adjustments to make so we can get the machine working properly.”

Backing away, Stephen said, “What kind of adjustments?”

“If you’d been listening to anything I’d just said you’d know I’m installing this,” Stark snapped, rolling his eyes and flashing his star-shaped device in Stephen’s direction again. “It’ll fix the aging problems you all were having with Scott.”

He glanced around the room. “Speaking of, where is Scott? And...everybody else, actually? I was expecting them to be here so I could get a warm welcome and give some kind of heroic speech about all the soul-searching I did last night.”

“You mean after you yelled at your team and then had a breakdown,” Stephen said without thinking.

Rogers glanced warningly in Stephen’s direction, but it was too late – Stark’s jaw tightened, and before anyone had a chance to react he was right up in Stephen’s face again, chest to chest with fire in his eyes. “I will _kill_ you.”

“Seems a bit counterproductive, considering that you need me to help you find the Time Stone,” Stephen said, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he fought the urge to rap this asshole upside the head.

Rogers shook his head in frustration. “If both of you don’t start being civil, I swear I’ll—”

“ _Civil,_ why the hell do I have to be—”

“ _Tony_ ,” Rogers said harshly – and to Stephen’s surprise, Stark didn’t finish his sentence.

Sighing deeply and looking between the two of them like they were a couple of exasperating children, Rogers said, “Scott’s on lunch break outside. He has Taco Bell if you want any.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Bruce was on lunch break too, but now he and Rocket are headed to Asgard to collect Thor.”

“Who’s Rocket, now?”

“The, uh, raccoon mutant. One of Peter Quill’s team.”

“Right, right, the rat thing that’s decent at mechanics, I remember.”

“You have more in common with a rat than Rocket does,” Stephen whispered under his breath.

“I heard that, and I’m heavily considering rearranging your facial features,” Stark responded, without even sparing him a glance. “Steve, what about Nat?”

“On her way to Japan right now. She got a tip about Clint.”

Stark’s face softened. “Fuck, we haven’t seen him in years.”

“I know.”

“Heard he’s become some kind of vigilante while he was over there. Went crazy with grief over his wife and kids.”

Stephen felt a pang of sympathy as he thought of the look on Natasha’s face as she’d read her holo-message. He didn’t know Clint, but he knew a little bit about the bond Natasha shared with him, and that it ran deeper than he could even begin to understand.

“Something like that,” Rogers sighed. They shared a sad, knowing half-smile. “But we’re getting him back here, along with Thor. Along with _every_ scrap of the team that we still have.”

Stark’s expression unknit. “Are you serious?”

Rogers nodded, eyes glittering with what almost looked like excitement. “The Avengers are reassembling, Tony.”

There was a moment of silence...and then Stark’s face split into a huge, _real_ grin – the first one Stephen thought he’d ever seen on the man’s face. There was no false charm, excessive charisma, or added sarcasm in this expression – it was one of pure, unadulterated joy and _hope_ that lit up Stark’s entire expression and made him practically glow.

Suddenly overcome with an emotion he couldn’t quite name, and sensing that the other two men still had quite a bit of conversing to do, Stephen moved back toward the time machine, and this time Stark didn’t seem to care about stopping him, so he settled in beside the wiring again.

So Stark was still a complete asshole, despite all of his deep-seated trauma. Or was it his deep-seated trauma that contributed to him being an asshole? Stephen wasn’t sure, but all he knew was that Natasha’s explanations last night didn’t hold up at all compared to the way Stark treated him in the cold light of day. And that _bitterly_ bothered him for some reason.

Glancing down at the panel before him, Stephen sighed mournfully as he realized Stark’s entrance had almost completely broken his concentration and fried one of the wires almost worse than it had been originally – and now that he was in the same room as the man, it was even more difficult to clear his mind. His thoughts kept drifting back to the spike of anger he’d felt when Stark had thrown him across the room, the hot rage blooming in his chest as the other man had shoved him up against a stack of boxes and pressed a hand to his throat...

Stephen shook his head, hard, and gritted his teeth in concentration. He tried to remember what the Ancient One had first taught him, about letting any emotions he was feeling flow through him before dissipating, leaving him calm and clear...

Slowly, his breathing evened, and his thoughts about Stark attempting to murder him was replaced with the way Stark’s smile had caught him so pleasantly off guard. He thought its glow was similar to that of his magic, and grinned as the aforementioned magic began to spark in front of him again. He glanced over and heard Stark laugh at something Rogers had said, and the sound was loud and full and warm, and felt like it was wrapping Stephen up in something comforting that he never wanted to leave.

The magic burned brighter, and his familiar symbols began to draw themselves in the air around the wiring panel as Stark continued to laugh, and the sound enveloped Stephen even further. He swirled his fingers, watching as the wires twisted themselves into new shapes and began to spark again, and felt his chest flutter with something indescribable...

Then he frowned, and the magic abruptly fizzled out – was he drawing on _positive thoughts about Tony Stark_ to help him fuel his time reversal? Hell to the _no._ _Especially_ not after the man had just tried to knock him unconscious for trying to be fucking _helpful._

“Trouble in magic land, Merlin?”

Stephen flinched, the voice startling him out of his thoughts.

“Hmm, you’re jumpy. Afraid I would catch onto the fact that Steve’s too trusting, and realize that you _are_ actively trying to sabotage us?”

At some point during Stephen’s musings, Stark had sauntered over to the van, and was now leaning against the open doorframe with his arms crossed, watching Stephen work.

“Nice of you to stop by,” Stephen answered, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Makes sense that lesser mortals like to admire the more advanced work.”

Stark snorted. “Was that a joke? You actually know how to make good jokes?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh, no, _I_ was joking that time, that was terrible. Damn, you’re even more gullible than Steve.”

Stephen inhaled sharply through his nose, and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at his infuriating teammate, who he was sure was wearing an extremely smug expression right now. “Did you want something, or are you just hear to gloat and accuse me of treachery again?”

He opened his eyes to find that Stark had a surprisingly abashed expression on his face, and smirked a little to himself. “Or am I wrong on both counts, and did Rogers actually bully you into apologizing for nearly killing me?”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, I hardly touched you,” Stark muttered, waving a dismissive hand. “Besides, I’m not wearing my suit, and your wizard shit could probably have me tied up with magic ropes in five seconds flat.”

Stephen snorted, slightly thrown by Stark’s almost _nervous_ tone, and responded with the first thing that came to his head: “Didn’t know you were into that, Stark – and even if you were, I figured _you’d_ like to be the one doing the tying.”

Stark reeled as though he’d been slapped, and a moment later Stephen felt his cheeks fill with color – of _all_ the things he could’ve said, why the hell did it have to be _that?_

But after a moment, Stark started to laugh, his suave charisma back in full force – and Stephen almost felt a twinge of disappointment at the fact that his comment had barely seemed to affect the other man at all. “Cheeky. I still think you’re an arrogant prick, but that was clever.”

“I’m honored. And it takes one to know one, Stark.”

“Guess it does.” Stark met Stephen’s eyes, and something Stephen couldn’t define passed across the other man’s chocolate-brown gaze.

“I’ll have to take a rain check on the magic ropes this time, but ask me again once we’ve got the time machine up and running.”

Stark’s eyebrows shot up into his hair, but he retained his indecipherable smile. “Nah, you irritate me too much, Strange.”

“Touché.”

They stood there in silence for a few moments before Stephen turned back to the wiring panel – but he glanced back up when he saw that Stark seemed to have no intention of moving.

“Will you _fuck off_?”

“Jesus, alright, I just wanted to watch you work!” Stark snapped.

Stephen had _no_ clue what to make of that statement, but at this point he didn’t care. He was too tired of Stark’s constant nagging and arrogance and just general lording it over everyone about how much better he thought he was. “Well, having self-absorbed pricks around me when I’m trying to do magic disrupts the aura, so I’m going to have to politely decline.”

Stark’s face flashed with anger. “You’re seriously gonna do this with me again?”

“I’ll do this as many times as it takes for you to realize that I want _nothing to do with you_ , Tony Stark,” Stephen snarled, stepping out of the van and unfolding himself to his full height. He relished the way Stark had to tilt his head back to keep glaring.

“Oh, believe me, the feeling is _very_ mutual, Stephen Strange,” Stark retorted, turning on his heel and storming off before Stephen had another chance to speak.

So Stark may have been depressed, anxious, and deeply traumatized – but he was a depressed, anxious, and deeply traumatized _prick._ And this simmering, bubbling, hot feeling spreading through Stephen’s entire body as he watched the other man’s retreating form was pure, unadulterated _hatred._

Wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehehehehehehe g a y. That was GAY.
> 
> PLOT STUFF HAS BEGUN!! I have two more chapters written after this and the whole story planned out, and I'm more inspired than I've been to write anything in a LONG time. (It helps that I have a whole movie's storyline to go off of, but hey, I'll take what I can get.) 
> 
> God I love this story. Thank y'all for sticking with it, and I hope you enjoyed this super-long chapter!


	7. Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is arguing, bonding, and mechanics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m just laughing because if you’d stop being so proud for one second and ask for my help, I could’ve gotten that chip where it needed to go already,” Strange said. “You just remind me a lot of myself.”
> 
> “If you ever compare yourself to me again I’ll jump off the roof of this compound,” Tony threatened.
> 
> “God knows you’d be doing me a favor.”
> 
> “Regardless, I’m fine. I don’t need any—”
> 
> “Oh, move OVER, you ass.”

“One day back on the force and you’re having me build an entire quantum tunnel from scratch? I take thank-you’s in the form of paychecks and massage coupons,” Tony mumbled to his team.

There was a little bit of laughter, but it was short-lived, and before long every set of eyes was trained on Tony again, all looking up at him with curiosity and expectation and, most terrifying of all, _hope_.

They were counting on him to get them through this. _He_ had to be the one to do this.

Despite the fact that the thought made him feel like throwing up, he also felt mildly smug as he glanced over at Steve, who was sitting in a chair at the far end of their brainstorming room and paying rapt attention just like everybody else. When he caught Tony’s gaze and noticed the self-satisfied grin on his face, he frowned good-naturedly and flapped his hand at the other man. “Alright, we get it, you’re the big boss here. Get on with it and tell us what we have to do.”

Tony took a deep breath, and pressed a button on the metal earpiece he always had with him. “Friday, pull up the schematics.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As I’m sure you all know, I’m the only person on this team who ever does any work,” Tony said with mock irritation, to a chorus of groans and eye-rolls, “and so I was up all night creating a blueprint for a quantum tunnel that works a hell of a lot better than that shitty old van – no offense, Scott.”

Surprised at even being addressed, Scott looked up and choked out, “N-none taken, Mr. Stark. Tony. Sir.”

“Now, you all can leave the wiring to me, Bruce, and Build-a-Bear, but the rest of you can easily enough break into our old storage units in the basement and get the rest of the necessary supplies. We should have everything we need downstairs, and there’s spare pressure plates in one of the storerooms on the sixth floor, I think—”

Tony trailed off as he noticed the entire team’s starstruck expressions, and after a moment of pause said “Gosh, guys, if you keep looking at me like that I’ll have to have us take the day off for an orgy or something—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a set of strong, buff arms were around him, and Steve Rogers was hugging him tighter than he could recall being hugged in a very long time. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but after his initial surprise, he hugged Steve back.

“Thank you, Tony.”

“What the hell for, Cap?”

“This – creating this, coming back, everything—”

“All right, all right, don’t go getting sappy on me now, it still has to _work_ ,” Tony groused, feeling flattered despite himself.

“This is...incredible,” Natasha murmured. “It’s beautiful.”

“Looks like a giant metal flower to me,” Thor piped up from the back, taking a hefty swig of beer. “But yeah, it’s alright.”

Bruce met Tony’s eyes from his seat in the room, and his wordless smile was all the encouragement Tony needed.

“Alright, thanks, now that we’re all done bowing at my feet and acknowledging that I’m a genius and that you wouldn’t be able to get anything done without me,” Tony said, trying to disguise his flood of emotion with a chuckle, “can I count on you guys to do _everything_ I tell you, exactly as I tell you to do it?”

Everyone seemed to come out of their stupor, and they all nodded vigorously.

“Absolutely, Tony.”

“Whatever you need.”

“We’re gonna do this together, and we’re gonna do it _right._ ”

Tony turned and met the eyes of his least favorite Avenger, who was sitting next to Thor in a corner and nursing a cup of coffee. He grinned as he took in the mildly belligerent expression on Strange’s face.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m in charge.”

\---

The next few days passed by in a blur. It was exhausting, and everyone was up extremely late performing the various tasks that they were best at, but Tony hadn’t felt more alive, or more like he had a _purpose,_ in so long. He hated admitting it to himself, but this was what he loved to do – it was where he belonged.

Scott spent several hours’ worth of note-taking sessions describing everything he knew about quantum physics with Tony, and even managed to email him some of Pym’s original schematics that he’d saved backups of in his initial Ant-Man days. Tony used these to piece together any bits that were missing from his own schematics (of which there were very few, he’d like to add), and in exchange, Scott got a practically endless supply of Taco Bell.

Bruce and the raccoon thing helped Tony do most of the actual complex work, creating wiring and incredibly intuitive programming that oftentimes burst into sparks in front of their eyes and left all three of them coughing up smokes. Bruce’s enormous size meant he was also able to do grunt work whenever he was needed, bending flat metal pieces into perfectly curved shapes without even breaking a sweat.

Natasha, Clint, and Blue Man Group were responsible for touch-ups, inspections, and subject-less test runs to make sure that the quantum tunnel didn’t explode on them all – which it did, several times, meaning the team had to start practically from scratch. On those occasions, it was usually Steve who gave some kind of inspiring pep talk that boosted morale, and pushed everyone to get back to work.

Thor – what the hell had even _happened_ to that guy? – spent most of his days helping Bruce and Rhodes do the heavy lifting, and providing good soundtracks to work by. Although Tony was sure that if he heard another Nirvana song he’d burst a blood vessel, he had to hand it to the pudgy God of Thunder: he had a great ear for rock tunes.

And Strange...Tony absolutely _hated_ to admit it, but Strange’s fancy magical powers had proved invaluable in all the tightest spots – he could conjure a glittery shield whenever things blew up in their faces, could levitate the right glass and titanium pieces perfectly into place without any risk of breakage, and was able to do his _scary_ fucking time-reversal thingy whenever things _did_ end up breaking.

Tony still didn’t trust all of Strange’s voodoo shit – not by a long shot, and especially not after it had cost them the Time Stone – but God knew he wanted to learn more about it, and Steve was right that Tony needed to get through to this asshole if they were gonna work properly together... So one day, he asked Strange about it – how he’d gotten so good at mechanics, and using his hands.

“Be careful, or that’ll almost be a compliment,” Strange responded.

It was late at night, and they were the last two still working on some last-minute repairs – Tony, because he hadn’t been able to sleep, and Strange for God knows what reason. God knew why Strange did _any_ of the weird shit he did – Tony had caught the guy in the kitchen at four a.m. making pizza bagels and listening to Lana Del Rey on more than one occasion.

His last name fit him.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m just curious,” Tony shot back. “I’m planning to kill you and then suck your brain out through a tube so I can exploit all your secrets, I just wanted to know what I was working with beforehand.” Jokes diffused tension, right? God, Tony was terrible at this.

“Ah, there’s the Stark I know.”

“The Stark you _know_ asked you a question.”

“The rest of the team might let you get away with pushing them all around, but I won’t,” Strange muttered. The comment annoyed Tony a little bit, but it was also mildly endearing, because the other man’s mouth was full of screws.

“I’ve been practicing magic, by the way,” he responded, choosing not to take the bait. “Almost got that glowing ropes thing down. So if you’re not gonna answer, I can always hang you upside down with your angles and subject you to the mysteries of an unfinished quantum tunnel.”

“Not the usual approach to tying somebody up, but we all knew you were a special brand of douchebag,” Strange said, his voice raised almost too much for it to have been accidental.

Tony set down his tools with a _clank._ “Listen, man, I’m trying to be civil here—”

“You’re only being _civil_ because Captain Rogers bullied you into it, and because he’s the only person whose opinion you actually give half a shit about here,” Stephen snapped, still keeping his eyes maddeningly trained on the work in front of him. “You don’t actually care about trying to be nice to me, so why not just drop the act.”

Feeling something dangerous bubble up in his gut, Tony gritted his teeth. _Steve told me to play nice, we need him..._ “I was just asking you a fucking question—”

“And _I’m_ telling you I’m not interested in answering it!” Stephen interrupted.

“Great. Fine. Sorry,” Tony practically shouted, throwing his hands up in defeat.

He returned crossly to his work, muttering to himself, but his gaze was clouded by irritation. Yeah, so he was a bit of a dick to everybody new to his team, but he was _testing_ them, _pushing_ them to be their strongest selves, and having someone else who was almost as much of a dick as him was _not_ good for that dynamic.

He was proud of himself for actually being able to speak to Strange for more than two seconds without wanting to punch the guy in the jaw, though.

Muttering to himself, Tony went back to the code he was inputting into one of his circuit boards, and after a moment hummed in satisfaction as it blinked a cheerful green. He moved to place it in a small slot on the underbelly of the platform he was working on, but cursed as he fumbled and dropped it on his own face.

“These fucking things, don’t know why Friday made them so tiny...”

He tried a few more times, each time fumbling the thumbnail-sized circuit board and dropping it to the tile below. In a desperate lunge for it, he sent it skidding across the floor underneath the platform, where it bumped into Strange’s left knee.

“Fucking Christ,” Tony sighed. He didn’t want to go and talk to that prickly idiot any more than was absolutely necessary, but he needed the chip... “Hey, Strange, by your knee.”

“Insulting my appearance now, too? Tough talk, coming from someone six inches shorter than me—”

“For _fuck’s_ sake, I accidentally dropped this chip I’m trying to install here, and it’s by your knee. Can you stop being a dick for a quarter of a second and just give it to me?”

Strange glanced up and, upon realizing that Tony _wasn’t_ lying to him (rude), sighed, scooped up the chip and strode around the side of the platform to where Tony was still lying on his back beneath its edge.

“Been having trouble getting this in place? It’s pretty small.”

“No.” Tony snatched it from Strange and tried to shove it into position far too hastily, and it tumbled right out again. “I’m doing fine. That’s all I needed. Thanks.”

He continued to struggle for a few more moments before realizing Strange was still standing there, hands in his pockets, with an expression of barely disguised amusement on his face.

_This motherfucker’s been here for a day longer than I have and he thinks he can make fucking fun of me? I’d like to see him try to build shit like this._

“Come on, don’t you have shit to do other than bitch at me and then laugh at me?” Tony snapped. “I had to come up with the schematics for this entire thing myself, so forgive me for fumbling a piece a couple times—”

“I’m just laughing because if you’d stop being so proud for one second and ask for my help, I could’ve gotten that chip where it needed to go already,” Strange said. “You just remind me a lot of myself.”

“If you ever compare yourself to me again I’ll jump off the roof of this compound,” Tony threatened.

“God knows you’d be doing _me_ a favor.”

“Regardless, I’m fine. I don’t need any—”

“Oh, move _over,_ you ass.”

Before Tony could even blink, Strange was lying down and wriggling into the crawlspace next to Tony, so they were pressed shoulder to shoulder as they stared at the mess of wiring on the platform’s underbelly. “What do I have to do?”

“I told you I didn’t need any—”

Strange grabbed one of Tony’s tools at random – an alien wrench he’d gotten ahold of during one of the Spider-kid’s failed heists – and whacked him across the chest with it, hitting his arc reactor with a startling _clang._ It _hurt._

“ _Fuck!_ What was that for, you dickhead?” Tony moved to snatch the wrench back, or bat Strange away (he wasn’t sure which), but Strange grabbed his wrist and slammed it to the floor, and Tony was surprised by the other man’s strength. “Jesus, you’ve got muscles for someone so skinny—”

“Something the Ancient One taught me when I was first learning the Mystic Arts was that when people don’t know how to accept help, sometimes it takes a few smacks to the chest to get them realize that they don’t always have a choice in the matter,” Strange growled, low in Tony’s ear.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and cringed away as Strange’s beard tickled the side of his face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, get _off!_ You’ve made your point!”

The air between them crackled with annoyance, but Stephen relented.

Glaring at him, Tony massaged his wrist. “You’ve got a grip like iron, Doc.”

“Helps when I have to hold people down,” Strange responded carelessly.

Tony blinked. “Wha—”

“Head out of the gutter, I meant during surgical procedures.”

“ _I_ thought you meant during combat, and I was surprised because I didn’t know an old hermit like you even knew how to throw a punch,” Tony said, hastily trying to cover up the dirty joke Strange had snatched right out of his head.

“You complimented my muscles literally thirty seconds ago.”

“Again, _wasn’t_ a compliment. I’ll rip my AR out before I give one of those out, _‘specially_ to you, Mr. High and Mighty Surgeon Man.”

“Better not stick with that nickname, it’s a mouthful.”

Tony was relieved to see that the hard line of Strange’s shoulders had eased, and he no longer seemed inclined to try and beat Tony up – which hadn’t been something that worried him previously, but now that he’d gotten a taste of how freakishly _strong_ Strange was, he almost thought they might be evenly matched. And being in close quarters with a man like that, while riled up...

...was _not_ something Tony wanted to think about for any longer than necessary.

He cleared his throat. “So. If you insist on getting in my way—”

“ _Helping you,_ ” Strange corrected.

“—then I’m gonna need you to use your magic floaty powers to guide this chip into that slot right there.” He gestured to the slot in question, which was glowing the same faint green as the chip in Strange’s palm.

Nodding his assent, Strange twirled his fingers in a circle, and soft golden light bloomed in various triangles and circles that danced across his knuckles and encircled his wrists. It surrounded Tony’s chip, too, and guided it away from Strange’s grip...right to where it was supposed to go.

It was mesmerizing, and Tony was almost disappointing that it had only lasted a few seconds. Watching those sparks dance across Strange’s deft palms...thinking about the beautiful way he used his magic to _create_ and _build,_ rather than to hurt and kill, the way Tony had seen it used before...it was _refreshing._

“Hey, earth to Iron Man,” Strange said, snapping his fingers in Tony’s face. “You went starry-eyed for a moment there. Was my magic show that captivating? It’s okay, you can say it.”

“Oh, no, I got distracted because of how fuckin’ boring it was. Almost dozed off, actually.”

Nevertheless, he smiled as he watched Strange guide the chip the rest of the way into its slot, both happy to have watched a magical display without losing his shit, and comforted by the easy smile that Strange had on his own face.

He reasoned to himself that Strange must be a lot like him, finding comfort and calm in the ability to use his hands to do something he was good at – surgery, or magic, or whatever it was. Maybe it made him feel like he was in control, in a world where everything felt so fucking _out_ of control all the time.

 _Or maybe you’re being a delusional little bitch,_ Tony’s conscience muttered to himself.

“You finished?” he asked gruffly.

“Yeah, just about, there’s just a bit of wiring I need to move out of the way – _ah!_ ”

Strange winced as his magic sparked a bit too bright in front of him, and swore under his breath when an errant ember fell onto his wrist. “Jesus _fuck_ , I forgot how much that hurt.”

“Ah, shit did it get you? Happens a lot in this line of work, it’s probably just a small burn. Let me see it.”

“No, it’s okay, I—”

“Fuck’s sake, Strange, I let you help me, just lemme see your damn hand.” Tony grabbed the wrist that Strange was cradling to his chest, immediately going into _minor injury mode_ the way he did with his teammates after a skirmish...or Morgan after she snuck into his workshop.

“Looks like a pretty minor burn, it’ll hurt less if I do this,” Tony said to himself without thinking, bringing Strange’s hand up to his mouth and sucking the side of his thumb. He knew that was a way to alleviate some of the worst of the pain, and it helped that the injury wasn’t bleeding because Tony _hated_ the taste of blood—

He heard a sharp intake of breath and glanced up to see that Strange’s eyes were wide as saucers, and he was staring at Tony like he’d suddenly grown another head.

“S-Stark, what are you – why is my – what are you d—”

Realizing just a second later what the implications of his actions were, and how different the dynamic was between him and Strange as compared to literally _anyone else_ , Tony choked on Strange’s thumb and spat it out like a burnt piece of fried chicken, scrambling away as fast as he could in the crawlspace and hitting his head painfully on the underside of the platform.

Both men scrambled out from beneath the machine as fast as they could, standing up and hastily righting their clothes like they were two teenagers caught in the act. Neither of them could look each other in the eye as Tony, suddenly overcome with an uncharacteristic inability to speak, stammered, “It’s what I do for Morgan – puts pressure on the wound and helps to drain most of the, uh, initial fluid, but I didn’t think – uh, fuck, I didn’t mean to—”

Strange raised a hand. At first, Tony thought it was just to stop his ranting, and then he thought he was about to get slapped – but then, he saw the familiar trail of circles and triangles form a twirling line around Strange’s wrist, before moving up toward his burn and slowly knitting the skin back together.

“Time reversal powers,” he choked out, voice low. “That’s why I said I didn’t, uh...need any help.”

_Why the fuck did I do that. Why did I suck on Stephen Strange’s finger like a fucking hooker, what the fuck is WRONG WITH ME._

“Yeah. Sorry. D-didn’t think about that.”

Swallowing, Strange shoved both his hands back in his pockets again. “Yeah.”

A murderously long silence stretched out between them in which neither spoke, and they occasionally snuck peeks at each other.

“Well, I don’t have anything else that needs fixing, so you can fuck off again,” Tony said finally, hoping that maybe being bitchy would kill this awkward moment once and for all.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that,” Strange muttered, shuffling back to his workstation and ducking his head down so they couldn’t make eye contact.

When was the last time Tony had done something so impulsive, and so explicitly... _weird_? And to a _man_ , no less. Pepper would laugh at him, he was sure, and tell him he was getting embarrassed over nothing. Maybe this was their way of _bonding,_ she might say.

Strange’s hands had been bigger than Tony had expected. And his skin had smelled faintly of machine oil.

Like Tony’s.

“My sister,” Strange said.

Tony blinked and looked up. “Huh?”

“My older sister, Donna. She’s the one who, uh, taught me about mechanics, and using my hands. I realized from her that it’s actually a lot like medicine...you have to be very careful, and precise, and one little thing that goes wrong could mess up the entire operation. But...it’s very rewarding when you get it right.”

Tony didn’t say anything for a moment, thrown by this display of sincerity that he wasn’t sure if he liked seeing from Strange. The last thing he needed to do was get all buddy-buddy with the guy and then have someone else to grieve over at the end of all this.

 _Jokes diffuse the tension._ “What’s your sister do now? I bet she’s a lot nicer than you.”

“She died when I was nineteen.”

“She _what?_ ”

“Christ, Stark, don’t act so surprised. You of all people know that nobody’s a stranger to death in this line of work.”

“Y-yeah, but not a lot of us were in the superhero business at _nineteen._ ” Tony gritted his teeth as a certain face flashed behind his eyes.

An awkward silence descended between them, and Tony could tell that Strange wasn’t sure if he regretted sharing that particular piece of information.

Tony swallowed, suddenly unsure of what to say. “Uh, I’m s—”

“Don’t. I hate it when people pity me, especially when it’s clear they don’t mean it. Saying sorry is just a polite formality everybody uses when they find out someone’s dead.”

“Fuck, that drives me nuts too, actually,” Tony said, returning to the wiring panel he was tinkering with so he could avoid looking at Strange. “I remember when my dad died and I was a little kid, all I heard everywhere was _I’m so sorry for your loss_ , _He was such a good man_ , _He’ll be with you forever,_ yadda yadda yadda, and all of it felt...”

“Cheap,” Strange finished for him, also having resumed his work.

“Yeah. Fake.”

They worked in silence for another few moments. “You know, for being a dickhead surgeon, you’re not _complete_ shit with tech, Strange. Your sister taught you pretty damn well.”

Strange glanced up, his blue-gray eyes boring right into Tony’s soul.

“I think that might’ve been an actual compliment, Tony Stark.”

“Just one more step and then we’re at the magic ropes,” Tony responded.

Their chuckles echoed back and forth in the cavernous space, and Tony felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More plot things, and a little bit of spicy banter between Stark and Strange!! I hope you guys like the direction I'm taking this story??
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


	8. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things get spicyyyyy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What about Truth or Drink?”
> 
> All eyes turned to Stephen, and he realized that once again, he was the one who had spoken without thinking – and that his eyes were trained on Stark as he made the suggestion.
> 
> “The hell is that?” Banner asked.
> 
> “It’s uh...something I played during my first medical residency. It’s like truth or dare, but the rule is that the questions you ask have to be extremely personal, and if you don’t want to answer a question, you have to, uh...”
> 
> “Drink?” Stark finished.
> 
> “Wow, Tony. You’re a genius,” Rocket groused.

Stephen had tried _very_ hard not to think about the extremely jarring display of personal space invasion he’d received from Tony Stark the night before, but it was all he’d been able to think about, to the point of not being able to sleep. They’d gotten to the point of nearly beating each other to a pulp, sure, but they’d also...worked together on something small, traded jokes, even _flirted?_ And Stephen Strange, the unflappable doctor who had made a career out of studying the mysteries of life and death, had _no_ fucking clue what to make of it.

He groaned, covering his face with his hands and rolling over in bed, wishing more than anything that he could punch Stark between the eyes and get all of his pent-up emotions out that way. Curse him and his lack of physical contact and his touch-starved senses and his aggressive, crippling _gayness._

He would _not_ develop a crush on Tony Stark, like some stupid lovesick schoolgirl. He absolutely refused.

And every timeline he delved into had a different outcome; in some of them, he and Stark kept arguing until the end of time, and their inability to cooperate ended up derailing entire operations. In others, they became close friends and confidants; in one, Stephen briefly saw an image of him and Stark in a bed doing _unspeakable_ things before he quickly shut his eyes and willed the thought out of his head.

But in every single timeline he looked into, the outcome was the same...

...Thanos won.

He knew there was a singular, minute timeline out there in which the Avengers won, in which they successfully pulled off this heist and defeated Thanos and restored those who were lost in the Snap. But for the life of him he had no clue whether that was the timeline _he_ was in or not...

...and the idea of losing made him shudder. Even the idea of losing _Tony_ made him cringe a little bit to think about.

Speaking of the devil, a moment later a sharp rap came on his bedroom door, and another moment later, without waiting for him to say ‘come in’, Stark threw the door wide open and wandered inside, leaving absolutely no room for Stephen to continue stewing in his thoughts.

“Up and at ‘em, Sleeping Beauty! I let you sleep in because you helped me with so many of the finishing touches last night, but we’ve got to start putting together a plan now,” he warbled, sounding far too cheerful for someone awake this early in the...

...afternoon? Stephen felt his face redden as he saw the large 2:00PM on his alarm clock. “You should’ve woken me earlier, Stark.”

“First of all, I am not your mother nor your housemaid, so _I_ should not have done anything,” Stark responded smoothly, seeming (to Stephen’s chagrin) not to be affected in the slightest by what had happened last night, “and second of all, you _have_ been working a lot harder than I expected you to—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—so I figured you could use a break.”

“I haven’t been working nearly as hard as you,” Stephen muttered.

“Nobody on the team works as hard as me, we’ve already established that,” Stark responded with a crooked grin. “But you’ve been working harder than a lot of _them,_ even, at least with tunnel-building shit. It’s, uh...”

He trailed off for a moment, to Stephen’s surprise, before saying much more quietly, “...It’s sort of nice to have another scientific mind around here.”

“Nah, too many other smart people in the same room as you would drive you nuts, with all their _opinions_ and _disagreements_ and all that,” Stephen shot back, trying to keep his tone light. “You wouldn’t last a week.”

“Har, har, alright, get your ass into the meeting room so we can start figuring out dispatch groups for the Stones—”

“What do you mean, _dispatch—_ ”

“Strange, _the tunnel works._ ” Stark’s eyes were bright, excited, and almost _hungry,_ in a way that only someone else scientifically-minded could pick up on...and Stephen knew the feeling well. “We did a few test runs with Clint and Scott this morning, and they worked like a charm. We can _time travel._ ”

Never in all his years of medical experience, or even the Mystic Arts, did Strange think he would hear anyone ever say those words.

“H-holy shit.” He covered his mouth with his hands, feeling a burst of shock and pride in his chest. “Holy _shit,_ Tony, you built us a _time machine._ ”

“ _We_ built us a time machine,” Stark said, seeming to want to squeeze Stephen’s shoulder but thinking better of it at the last second and clapping him on the back instead. “I’m not gonna say I couldn’t have done it without you or anything, because I totally could have, but you were definitely more useful than I thought you’d be.”

“Again with the impossibly high praise. However will I handle it?”

“Alright, quit being dramatic and get changed, we’re convening in fifteen minutes,” Tony said, his eyes gleaming with an excitement that Stephen couldn’t help but be infected by. “We’ve got a time heist to plan.”

\---

As it turned out, time heist planning was exhausting and stressful and listening to Thor tell stories was absolute _hell,_ so despite the Avengers being some of the strongest people on the planet, every last one of them was completely spent by nine p.m., and Stephen couldn’t help but be relieved when Stark told them they could call it quits early that night.

“We should order pizza,” Lang suggested. “In celebration of our quantum tunnel being built.”

“Not so fast, Half Pint, we haven’t actually used it yet,” Stark said, but he was overruled by a chorus of other superheroes who were all _ravenous_ for carbs.

Ten minutes later, six enormous boxes of steaming, cheesy, heavenly-smelling pizza were spread out across the pool table in the center of one of the compound’s various rec rooms, and after everyone had jostled to load up their plates, each Avenger flopped down on a couch, bean bag, or just on the floor just so that they could get a Minute. Of. Fucking. _Rest._

Stephen found himself squeezed in between James Rhodes, who he didn’t know very well, and Nebula, who scared the hell out of him, on an extremely squishy leather couch – like, so squishy he was afraid he would sink into it and never come out.

“We gotta get some drinks out, man,” Thor said, somehow _already_ having finished a beer that Stephen could have sworn he’d cracked, like, thirty seconds ago. “Have a toast to something, or whatever.”

“Well, we _definitely_ can’t get shitfaced...” Steve Rogers said from his place by the pool table, grinning at Stark.

“Oh, come on, after the weekend we’ve had? I’m definitely not saying no to a couple beers or whiskeys with my team,” Stark responded, to a chorus of cheers from the others as he scampered out of the room to grab a bottle.

When he returned to the room with a twelve-pack of beers in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other, Stephen tried not to express surprise at the fact that Iron Man drank the same brand of scotch as he did. Apparently he did have some fine tastes, after all.

Once everyone had been provided a drink of their choice, Stark shoved Rogers into the center of the room under the pretext of being ‘too tired’ to make a speech of his own, and with a sigh, Rogers glanced around at their assembled team.

“Here’s to a depressed, messy, ragtag group of superheroes,” he began, to a chorus of giggles across the room, “who are well on their way to making all their wrongs right.”

Everyone else murmured their assent and took long, hearty sips of their respective drinks. Rhodes clinked his beer bottle good-naturedly against Stephen’s glass of scotch, and even Nebula smiled kindly in his direction, though she wasn’t drinking anything.

“We should play a game,” Clint Barton suggested suddenly, with a surprising amount of vigor.

“A _game?_ What kind of game, Clint, count-the-days-until-Thanos-kills-us-all?” Banner asked.

“I was thinking more like Never Have I Ever, or something,” Barton suggested.

Several people snorted in unison. “What are we, five?” Rogers said.

“Seven Minutes in Heaven almost sounds more appropriate,” Natasha chimed in with a giggle.

“You Earth people have the shittiest alcohol I’ve ever tasted, so if we’re playing a drinking game, I’m _definitely_ passing,” Rocket, the grumpy raccoon mutant, piped up.

“A drinking game actually sounds like a lot of fun,” Stephen said, shutting his mouth as abruptly as he’d opened it. “Uh, I’m just as surprised as any of you are at the fact that I said that.”

“Doctor Killjoy is suggesting a _drinking game?_ ” Stark said incredulously. “What has the world come to?”

“I – I don’t know why I said that,” Stephen insisted, turning to Rogers. “Captain, I know you said we couldn’t get shitfaced—”

“And I stand by that,” Rogers said firmly.

“Oh, come on, let us have a little bit of fun!” Thor groaned.

“I will not be partaking in your strange human rituals, but it seems very interesting to watch,” Nebula commented. “I would also like for this to happen.”

“There’s drinking in Never Have I Ever, if you change the rules a bit!” Barton said, with a laugh as Natasha elbowed him in the side.

“What about Truth or Drink?”

All eyes turned to Stephen, and he realized that once again, he was the one who had spoken without thinking – _and_ that his eyes were trained on Stark as he made the suggestion.

“The hell is that?” Banner asked.

“It’s uh...something I played during my first medical residency. It’s like truth or dare, but the rule is that the questions you ask _have_ to be extremely personal, and if you don’t want to answer a question, you have to, uh...”

“Drink?” Stark finished.

“Wow, Tony. You’re a genius,” Rocket groused.

“Thank you, Ratchet.”

“It’s _Rocket._ ”

“Whatever.”

“That sounds _incredibly_ boring, but I’ll stick around because I want more pizza. Don’t expect me to pay attention to anything you all say, though,” Rocket added, snatching a slice off of Rogers’ plate before settling back into his bean bag.

“All in favor of Truth or Drink, then?” Stark asked, eyes falling on Stephen for just a moment before flicking to the rest of the room. “Say aye.”

To Stephen’s surprise, a chorus of aye’s followed.

“All opposed?”

Not even Rocket made a noise.

“Alright then, Stephen, do you wanna do the honors of starting us off?” Stark suggested, grinning slyly in Stephen’s direction.

Stephen swallowed, thinking of all the questions he’d never dare to admit that he was absolutely _dying_ to ask Stark...so he turned to Natasha instead. “Natasha, tell me about the most memorable female hookup you’ve ever had.”

Wolf-whistles and _ooh’s_ rose around Stephen, along with a “Goddamn, that’s certainly a way to start this game!” and Natasha immediately started giggling.

“Well, there was the one time Wanda and I got drunk and made out in a broom closet...”

The room exploded into uproarious laughter.

“Oh my _God,_ Nat, you didn’t!”

“I didn’t even realize she—”

“Scott, come on, look at her and tell me you don’t think she—”

“Alright, alright, alright!” Natasha hollered over the din, seeming happier and more relaxed than Stephen had ever seen her. “Bruce.”

She turned to their enormous green companion, who shifted nervously in his seat as the noise level dropped and all eyes turned to him.

“What’s, uh...” Natasha stifled a snort behind her hand. “Now that you’ve, uh. Permanently become the Jolly Green Giant, what’s it like having—”

Banner had knocked back half his beer bottle before Natasha could even finish the offending sentence, and the room went up in laughter again, some people boo-ing Banner and others speculating as to what exactly Natasha was going to ask.

Stephen still wasn’t targeted very much, either for questions or for ensuing conversations, but this was the most at home he’d felt in front of a group of people in a very long time. He laughed alongside them, went quiet when people asked painful questions and the recipients chose to answer, and happily took swigs of his scotch whenever someone asked a question _he_ wasn’t interested in divulging the answer to.

It felt real, and honest, and _fun;_ he was pleasantly buzzed, occasionally taking bites of his now-cold pizza and feeling like he was a student again, without cares or worries or anything to think about except where his next sip of alcohol was coming from, and how sexual the next question would be.

And he learned quite a bit about the group in the process – apparently Rhodes was known for singing very loudly and off-key in the shower, Rogers’ guilty pleasure music was Ariana Grande, Thor had once been catfished on a Fortnite server by a twelve-year-old boy, and Stark _actually_ had a kink for tying people up.

Not that Stephen cared very much about that last answer. Absolutely not. Never mind that Stark had made direct eye contact with him and waggled his eyebrows suggestively as he answered the question, which Lang had posed.

Finally, after choosing to drink instead of answering a question about whether he approved of his daughter’s ex-boyfriend, Clint Barton turned to Stephen.

“Doctor Strange, your turn.”

“Alright, I’m bracing myself for something horribly personal.”

Barton was red in the face and more than a little tipsy; his laughter had been the loudest and his words the most slurred throughout the night, and he was now fighting to keep his head from lolling onto Natasha’s shoulders every five seconds.

“If you had to kiss _anyone_ in this room, who would it be and why?” Barton mumbled.

“Jesus Christ, Clint, are you sure that time machine didn’t turn you into a five-year-old?” Natasha groaned, ruffling Barton’s hair.

“First Never Have I Ever, and now this,” Stephen joked, trying to hide the fact that his mind was racing. “Well, I’ve got to do process of elimination, now, don’t I?”

Natasha’s mouth fell open. “You’re actually going to answer him?”

“I’ve had enough to drink for one night, at least if I want my wits about me tomorrow,” Stephen said primly, setting his third glass of scotch down. “And besides, I definitely wouldn’t be in love with whoever I chose, considering I’d rather be Thanos-snapped out of existence than date any of you. No offense.”

Nobody took offense.

Stephen was getting pretty good at this suave cool-guy thing. Maybe he could dethrone Stark one of these days.

“Alright, so first off, I’m a fag, so that rules out Natasha and Nebula – sorry, ladies, but I’m not really interested in the apparatus you both have to offer,” Stephen said, ignoring the chorus of guffaws and shocked noises that rose from everyone there.

“God _damn,_ and here I thought Steve was the only fruit in our midst—”

“If he wasn’t so in love with Bucky I would suggest you two get it on—”

“Imagine _rejecting Natasha—_ ”

Stephen only had eyes for Stark while all this was going on; the other man’s warm brown eyes, slightly glazed over from alcohol, were regarding him in a new, appraising, and slightly uncomfortable light.

_Oh, God. Trust self-absorbed asshole Wonderboy to be a homophobe as well as a prick._

But his best friend was gay, and Stark definitely knew that, so...

Shaking himself out of a stupor, Stark said, “Well, that still leaves you plenty of options, so have your pick of the men. I promise none of us will be too offended to be the unlucky winner.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, but felt a soaring relief at the fact that he’d been more or less accepted by the group. He knew that Steve was out, and that his relationship with Bucky had been common knowledge to all of the team members, but coming out to a new group of people would _always_ be nerve-wracking to him – he knew that he’d only even said it so boldly because of the liquid courage buzzing through his veins.

“For reasons that were previously stated, I would not choose to kiss Captain Rogers,” Stephen said, “out of respect for the sanctity of his future marriage to James Buchanan Barnes.”

Rogers flushed around the ears. “Appreciate that, man.”

“Clint’s married and Lang’s got a girlfriend, so those two out are out for the same reason – I am _not_ a homewrecker,” he continued proudly, smiling as the group cheered. “And Rhodes...you’re very attractive, but I don’t think I could handle being a military husband.”

Rhodes snorted, and nudged Stephen’s side. “No hard feelings, don’t worry.”

“That leaves Bruce, Thor, and me,” Stark said.

Stephen swallowed again, his throat suddenly going dry and all of his newfound confidence disappearing before he could blink. _Shit._

He turned to Banner. “Well. As much as...I’m _sure_ you have to offer, I don’t like to date men who are taller than me, so...”

He pretended not to notice the way Stark’s brow knit at that comment.

Banner snorted. “Relax, I get it. The Hulk look doesn’t do it for a lot of people. No need to sugarcoat.”

“No, no, it’s very attractive! Very, uh, macho. But my masculinity is fragile, at least in my own appearance, and I would be too insecure to give you a kiss,” Stephen said, jokingly blowing an air-kiss in Banner’s direction. Good-naturedly, Banner caught it.

“Two left,” Natasha said, a mischievous gleam in her eye as her gaze locked with Stephen’s.

All eyes were on him...and his eyes were on Stark.

Something electric passed between them, something in the other man’s smug, calculating gaze that excited Stephen just as much as it pissed him off. He wasn’t sure what it was, and was completely positive that Stark was straight – and was _definitely_ not prepared to open that can of worms even if he wasn’t – but as he opened his mouth to declare that he’d still choose Stark over anybody else in the room, he was swiftly cut off.

“Alright, that leaves me, just because I know Thor’s got the worst beer breath out of anyone I’ve ever met. Also, I’m the most attractive man in the room, and yet you _still_ only came to choosing me by _process of elimination._ I’m hurt, honestly,” Stark joked.

And just like that, the moment was gone. No one else except Natasha seemed to have notice the crackling air between Stephen and Stark, and her eyes were flicking back and forth between them with trained interest while everyone else began murmuring about being tired or full or drunk, and needing an early start the next day.

“Alright, everyone, seems like the game’s over. Let’s pack it up, we want to be back here bright and early for more brainstorming tomorrow,” Rogers said, herding folks out of the room like a flustered mother hen.

Stephen ripped his gaze away from Stark and tried very hard not to look at Natasha, but she brushed past him with a meaningfully raised eyebrow as she said her goodnights. Everyone else soon followed, until it was just Stark and Stephen left alone in the rec room.

Their eyes met again, and Stephen sighed. “Look, I’m too tired to fight off a murder attempt tonight, and I promise I’m only here because I’m a stickler for cleaning up messes, so please—”

Wordlessly, Stark moved to take the empty pizza boxes out of Stephen’s hands. “I know. I believe you. I can take those.”

Glancing after him in surprise, Stephen said, “Seriously? No insults, no backhanded compliments, no banter, no generally being a prick?”

“Listen, even the most world-class assholes need rest sometimes too,” Stark sighed, before grinning in Stephen’s direction. “I’m sure you’d know.”

“And _I’m_ sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stephen responded, fighting the blush that crept up the back of his neck. “I just know you’re a dick.”

“ _Again,_ your area of expertise. You make this too easy, Strange.”

Rolling his eyes, Stephen picked up a few discarded beer bottles and dropped them down the garbage chute in the wall. “As shitty as your jokes are, it’s better than you being homophobic. Which is what I was worried about for a minute.”

Stark paused halfway toward picking up a discarded piece of pizza crust, giving Stephen a full view of his well-toned ass in his sweats. (Stephen definitely didn’t look.)

“You thought I was homophobic?”

“Not because I think you’re – that kind of – I just sort of assume it about everybody if they don’t immediately reassure me otherwise. And you’re pretty hard to read, honestly,” Stephen explained.

The corner of Stark’s mouth quirked up as he turned to face Stephen. “Gotta maintain my suave air-of-mystery shtick somehow, don’t I?”

Stephen huffed. “ _That’s_ not exactly the way I’d do it.”

“Thank God I’m not you then, Strange.”

Silence between them for a moment as Strange brushed crumbs off the pool table and Stark rubbed a grease spot out of the couch leather.

“And no, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, I’m not homophobic.” A flicker of affection crossed Stark’s face – for Rogers, most likely. “I’m...not gay, though. Or bisexual, or anything like that. So don’t hit on me.”

Stephen felt his lips twist in anger, knowing from personal experience that that was _exactly_ the sort of thing a homophobe would say.

“You’re the one who’s been sucking my fingers, Stark,” Stephen responded coolly.

“I already _explained_ that to you—”

“And making jokes about tying me up, and slamming me against things whenever you get the chance,” he added, only half-kidding.

Stark went silent, but Stephen could feel the comfortable, even _friendly_ progress they’d made slipping away faster than he could race to salvage it.

“So I think the question is, Mr. Stark,” Stephen said, boldly sidling closer to Stark until they were nose-to-nose, “if you don’t want me to hit on you because you think _I_ can’t control myself...”

He moved to the doorway, made to exit, and paused with his hand on the doorframe.

“...or because you think _you_ can’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a good enemies to lovers fic without a drinking game scene, right?
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!! All your kudos/bookmarks/comments make me so happy -- please feel free to leave more with thoughts or suggestions about the story!


	9. Hand-to-Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is beating...of multiple kinds.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter is where the nsfw stuff really begins so pls be careful and shield your eyes if you're not comfortable!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are you...jealous of me, Doctor Strange?” Tony asked incredulously. “Jealous of the fact that I can get away with everything you never could, without any consequences?”
> 
> Something flashed in Strange’s eyes, and his body convulsed beneath Tony as his hands clenched into fists and he fought to struggle free.
> 
> Bingo.

Mechanics were all well and good for when Tony needed to calm down, or clear his head, or get away from the world for a while, or feel in control again when he was spiraling.

But _anger?_ That was something he went up to the top-floor gym to release. Punching bags, pull-up bars, the pommel horse, whatever he was in the mood for – his back wasn’t what it used to be, but _hell_ if a pissed-off Tony Stark didn’t know how to throw a damn good punch.

He had his choice of three separate bags – an enormous, extremely battered purple one that most of the team liked to take out their rage on (it had been nicknamed Thanos), a medium-sized red one that was still stiff as a board even after years’ worth of punches (it had been nicknamed Iron Bag), and a brand-new, tall, thin dark blue one, with the sheen still glowing on the crisp plastic.

It looked smug, and punchable, and a lot like Stephen Strange.

Rather than putting on boxing gloves, Tony simply shed his shirt and bandaged his knuckles before absolutely _whaling_ on the poor blue bag, despite the fact that the plastic was still new and would definitely leave marks on his hands. No warm-up, no stretching, no light punches to start with – just every last ounce of drunken, bottled-up pain and rage that Tony had, poured right into each strike, until the punching bag was practically swinging off its chain every time he hit it.

As he punched and kicked and growled low in his chest, Tony thought about Thanos, and everything he’d taken from them; the Snap, this ridiculous ‘time heist’ that probably wouldn’t even work...his Spider-kid, who’d loved this gym almost more than Tony did.

Tony’s swings slowed down, his breath coming in short huffs as he leaned over and braced his hands on his knees, feeling a painful twinge in his AR. “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m old.”

But then he thought about Strange again, and the calculating look in his grey eyes whenever he spoke to Tony, whenever he dropped some kind of flirtatious hint, whenever he made jokes about being tied up with magical ropes.

With a roar, Tony got right back up and started demolishing the punching bag again, twice as hard this time. What fucking right did Stephen Strange have to come in here with his twinkle fingers and treat his team leader like shit, _give up a fucking Infinity Stone,_ and parade around with his fancy cape being an arrogant prick all the time?

Tony had to hand it to the guy for juggling all of that _along_ with making him question his own sexuality.

 _Not_ that Tony was questioning his sexuality. At all. Because Stephen Strange absolutely repulsed him. He and Tony were infuriatingly similar, and that was _disgusting,_ because Tony was definitely not his own biggest fan, so he would by no means be a fan of anyone who was even remotely like him – and Strange was _far_ too much like him for Tony’s own comfort.

And also, Tony respected and accepted gay people. He couldn’t see the appeal, of course, because he wasn’t much a fan of dick himself, but even he could see that Steve and Bucky were more in love than practically any straight couple he’d ever known.

But he Wasn’t. Fucking. Gay.

And the _audacity_ that Strange had to insinuate that Tony wouldn’t be able to control himself around the other man? The punching bag was met with Tony’s most aggressive punch yet at that particular thought, coupled with a flurry of smaller punches fueled by secondhand embarrassment because yes, to the untrained eye anyone would believe that perhaps Tony _had_ been hitting on Strange. But he hadn’t, and he knew that Strange knew that, so _why_ would he—

“What are you – _oof_!”

Speak of the fucking devil. Strange, in his own workout sweats and absolutely nothing else, had come up behind Tony, who jumped, turned around, and clocked Strange with a right hook that landed perfectly on his jaw. Strange’s head snapped back like a whip, and he folded faster than Tony had thought was humanly possible – and then, with a _smack,_ he was on the ground.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Strange shrieked. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?”

Here this asshole was again, taking everything else that was somewhat in control in Tony’s life and pulling it apart by the seams – and Tony was too drunk and seeing too much red to care what happened next as he launched himself at Strange. “What the fuck is wrong with _you,_ huh? Sneaking the fuck up on me, trying to fucking kill me or something—”

“I was coming up here to blow off steam,” Strange hissed, twisting Tony’s wrist just long enough to slip out of his grasp, “but it seems you beat me to it.”

“Please, the only thing you need to do to blow off steam is jerk off to me in the shower,” Tony snarled in response, leaping onto Strange and kneeing him in the ribcage.

“So you _are_ a homophobe then!” Strange cried triumphantly, hooking his leg around Tony’s midriff and sending him tumbling to the floor.

“No, I’m _not,_ I just hate _you_!” Tony yelled back, sweeping his leg out and bringing Strange down with him. “ _You_ and your control issues—”

“You’re one to talk—”

“And your high-and-mighty attitude—”

“Look in a mirror, sweetheart—”

“And your—”

“Shut UP!” Strange roared, leaping forward and _slamming_ down on top of Tony so hard that his head knocked back into the rubber floor mats and he saw stars. When he could see straight again, he saw that Strange was sitting on his lower abdomen, one hand pressing him flat into the ground and the other holding his jaw hard enough to hurt the already-forming bruises on it. Strangely, it wasn’t as painful as it probably should’ve been “Shut the _fuck_ up!”

“Did I hurt your feelings, sweetheart?” Tony teased, suddenly acutely aware of how heavy Strange was, as well as the sheen of glistening sweat on his body.

“No, I just hate _hypocrites,_ ” Strange responded, forcing Tony’s chin further upward and pushing the back of his head into the rubber beneath them. “And _everything_ that you hate so much about me, is shit that everybody else seems to praise in _you,_ and I don’t understand it.”

Tony was momentarily caught off guard by the rawness in the other man’s eyes; the way his surprisingly toned chest heaved above Tony; the wild, almost animalistic way in which he held himself – a far cry from the prim and proper doctor part he played to everyone else.

He realized after a moment that during their staring contest, Strange’s grip had loosened. His breathing was heavy, and he was staring with Tony with a mix of rage and something like...awe. His expression sent prickles across Tony’s shoulders, and he wasted no time in grabbing Strange and flipping their positions, relishing the _oof_ that he heard as the all-powerful magician had the wind knocked out of him.

He grabbed Stephen’s wrists and slammed them to the floor on either side of his head, earning a stuttering gasp from the other man that he was _positive_ didn’t have much to do with the pain – and felt a surge of even more surprise as the noise stirred something deep in Tony’s lower chest. His AR flickered.

“Are you... _jealous_ of me, Doctor Strange?” Tony asked incredulously. “Jealous of the fact that I can get away with everything you never could, without any consequences?”

Something flashed in Strange’s eyes, and his body convulsed beneath Tony as his hands clenched into fists and he fought to struggle free.

_Bingo._

An odd part of Tony felt like he shouldn’t be looking at Strange right now, like he shouldn’t be allowed to see this side of him. He was sure the man kept it hidden from most of the world – God knew he gave far too many fucks about his own reputation – so why was Strange letting down his walls now? Around _Tony_ , of all people?

Strange’s eyes narrowed, as if he was coming to the same realization as Tony was. Something passed over his face – and just like that, his face was unreadable again. “I’m not jealous of you.”

“You’re not?” Tony pushed Strange’s arms further apart, enjoying far too much the way it made the other man’s breath hitch as he leaned even closer, until his breaths were fanning Strange’s well-trimmed chin. “Are you _sure_ about that?”

And then, with some impossible crazy jujitsu combination that none of his Avengers combat classes had ever prepared Tony for, Strange had somehow managed to break his hold and flip him over so that he landed _hard_ on his stomach, jarring his AR to the point that for a few seconds, he completely blacked out.

When he came to again, Stephen was standing over him, breathing heavily, hair dripping in sweat, looking both terrifying, and _terrifyingly_ inviting.

“I _hate_ you, Tony Stark.”

And then he was gone.

\---

“Friday, run a shower for me, please.”

“Yes, sir. Any particular temperature?”

Tony paused for a moment, sighing. “Hot.”

A moment later, he heard the sounds of his shower spray hitting the tiles, and wasted no time shedding his sweats and briefs so that he could let the absolutely _boiling_ water rush over him. “Ahhhhh, fuck, that hits the spot. Thanks, Friday. Power down for a bit, will you? So I can have some privacy.”

“Yes, sir.”

A set of cheery beeps signaled Friday going into sleep mode for the evening, and Tony leaned back against the shower wall with a loud sigh of relief. It had been a long, _exhausting_ fucking day, and the last thing he needed was any more thoughts about the Infinity Stones, Thanos, or Stephen Dickhead Strange.

_A good orgasm ought to do the trick._

Aside from beating things up in the top floor gym, beating _himself_ up was Tony’s second favorite method of releasing pent-up tension – and _god_ knew he hadn’t done it in a long time. He could just relax, think about a pair of perky tits for a few minutes, and then suddenly his worries and stresses would melt away.

Tony let his head fall back onto the tile as his lips parted in a long exhale and he took himself in his hand, knowing that he wouldn’t last long with how tightly wound up he already was. He didn’t bother with going slow, but instead hit the ground running, hissing with a mix of pleasure and pain at the friction between the shower water and his skin.

He thought about a woman – any size or shape worked, really, as long as she was believable enough to be real. He imagined this woman on her knees in the shower, sucking his cock.

He groaned, long and low in his chest, gripped his cock even tighter, and pumped even faster. Steam filled his vision as Tony braced himself against the shower’s glass door, the humidity around him only adding to the slick, filthy wetness of it all...

And god, it was _so_ slick...and hot...and violent...

...as Tony flipped Stephen Strange’s wild-eyed, sweat-drenched body onto the rubber mattress again; except this time, instead of just an angry retort, Strange bit his lip and released a breathy curse. “ _Fuck,_ Stark...”

Tony jerked sideways and almost crashed to the shower floor in his haste to get his hand away from his cock, suddenly shaking and feeling extremely cold, even though it was roasting in his bathroom.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no.

What the fuck was _that?_

No way in _hell_ was he ever gonna think about Stephen Bitchface Strange while he was _masturbating._ Again, Tony wasn’t gay, had never even remotely considered doing it with a man (and a drunken blowjob in undergrad did _not_ count), and even if he _was_ going to, it Would. Not. Be. Him.

Knocking his forehead gently against the wall of the shower, Tony shook himself out of his uncomfortable stupor. He was just riled up from his fight with Strange earlier, that was all, that was why the asshole was still on his mind.

_All this will be fine if I just grind it out._

Sighing as his heart returned to its normal rate, Tony took his cock back into his hand again and resumed his steady rhythm, sucking in a breath at the harshness of his own movements. (So he was a masochist, what could he say?)

He thought about this mystery woman again – this time picturing her on top of him, riding him with her hands tied behind her back. _Man,_ he missed sex. He’d be sure to have some when this was all over, and make it damn _fucking_ good.

And _god_ did it feel good to have Strange looming over him, pressing him back farther into the mats, sinking his teeth into Tony’s neck—

“What the FUCK!” Tony shrieked out loud, crumpling and sliding in a graceless heap to his shower floor. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with me!”

He ran his hands through his hair and inhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing breathing as more _sickeningly_ lewd images filled his brain. Had Strange done some kind of voodoo shit on Tony when he wasn’t paying attention?

A series of electrical noises above him caused him to glance up.

“Sir, I know you told me to enter sleep mode, but you made a noise of distress. is there a way I can assist?”

His heart rate calmed again at the sound of Friday’s voice, and Tony sighed deeply. “Nah, that’s alright, Friday, it’s nothing you can help me with. Just, uh...personal stuff.”

“Noted, sir.”

Could you even call it that? Thinking about that annoying asshole while whacking off? What kind of “personal stuff” was that?

It did feel _very_ personal, having Strange panting as he grabbed hold of Tony’s jaw, having their hips grind together—

God _fucking_ damn it, when had Tony’s hand moved to his cock again?

This time, though he tried to pull his hand away, it kept moving of its own accord, and his back arched as he let out an involuntary gasp at the thought of Strange pushing his head back farther and dragging his teeth along the column of Tony’s throat...

His hand’s ministrations picked up speed, even as a million different emotions warred in his brain and he fought to regain control of his imagination because this was _wrong,_ this was fucking _disgusting_ and it was _not_ what he fucking wanted, he wanted to think about that girl with her nice ass and gorgeous tits as she sucked him off—

But it was the internal vision of Stephen Strange, with Tony’s cock in his mouth, that brought a guttural yelp bubbling out of Tony’s throat, and it was the most horrific thing he’d ever done but _fuck_ if it didn’t feel good and if he wasn’t gonna cum if he kept this up—

“Sir, you have an incoming call from Pepper Potts.”

“ _Jesus Motherfucking Christ_!” Tony shrieked, tripping and slamming into the shower door so hard that he fell straight out and onto the ice-cold floor. “Can’t a guy catch a fucking _break_ around here?”

“I apologize, sir, would you like me to tell her you’re busy at the moment?”

“No, no, Friday, it’s okay, take the call,” Tony choked out, scrambling upright to put on a bathrobe and trying to quell the trembling in his hands and legs.

A moment later, a hologram of his favorite person took shape in Tony’s bedroom, and he staggered over to sit down on the edge of his bed so he could stare at her properly. “H-Hey there, Ms. Potts.”

“Hey, Tony.” Pepper looked him up and down with an amused smile. “Catch you at a bad time?”

_Yes._

“Oh, no,” Tony shrugged. “If it’s the bathrobe, I read a magazine somewhere saying it was the latest fashion. Feels great to have some wind on my thighs for once, actually.”

Pepper smiled at him, a real, genuine, soft smile, and Tony suddenly felt all the thoughts swirling in his head slow down and ebb away. “I miss you, Pep.”

“You’ve only been gone a week.”

“Has it really only been that long? It feels like it’s been months.”

“Messing with time will do that to you,” Pepper said. “But if you insist, I miss you too.”

“I miss Maguna _waaaay_ more than I miss you, though. Can I say hi?”

“She’s about to go to sleep, but just for a minute. Morgan!”

Tony’s heart warmed as he heard the patter of running feet on the other side of the call, and then Morgan’s perfect, pixelated little face filled the hologram. “Daddy!”

“Hey, angel, how’s it going?” Tony said, trying hard not to tear up as he saw how happy his daughter looked. “You holding down the fort okay while I’m away? Being good to Mommy, listening to what she says?”

“Most of the time, yeah,” Morgan answered bashfully.

“What do you mean, most of the time? I’m counting on you, kiddo!”

“Well...one time, Mommy told me not to put sticky grilled cheese fingers on the couch, and I forgot and got the couch dirty.”

Tony made sure to make his gasp extra loud and extra scandalized, and put a hand to his heart. “Oh, my goodness. Morgan H. Stark, I think I’m going to have to sell all your toys when I come back home. Or _replace all your orange juice pops with grape ones._ ”

Morgan started giggling uncontrollably, and Tony laughed with her, feeling some of the leftover tension in his body unknot as his daughter raised her hand up to the edge of the hologram.

“I miss you, Daddy.”

Tony lifted his hand so that it was almost touching hers, his eyes welling up. “I miss you too, sunshine. But I promise I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Pinky swear.” To prove it, Tony stuck his pinky out, poking it into the hologram, which pulsated and flickered different colors. Morgan giggled again, and stuck her pinky out too, and when Tony interlinked their fingers, he could almost feel her tiny hand in his.

“Alright, Miss Morgan, it’s time for you to get to bed,” Pepper said, popping back into frame to smother their daughter in a bear hug.

“But I wanna stay and talk to Daddy! I wanna know what he’s doing!”

“Hey, how about this, little lady – after Mommy and I are done talking, I’ll have Friday send over a fun hologram of one of the projects I’m working on. How does that sound?”

Morgan brightened. “Promise?”

“Promise. It’ll be a space-themed one, too. I know that’s your favorite Planet Earth episode.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Daddy. Love you.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” Morgan had already scampered out of the frame before Tony could whisper, “...I love you 3000.”

Pepper sighed as she watched their daughter go. “You’re going to come home to her, right?”

Tony screwed his eyes shut for a long moment. “Yeah. I am.”

_I have to._

“How’s the, uh...time heist going?”

Tony brightened up a bit. “Quite a bit better than expected, actually. We got the quantum tunnel up and running in record time, and...” He felt himself choke up a little bit with a mixture of pride and fear. “It works. It actually works.”

Pepper’s eyes widened. “You were able to send people back in time?”

Tony nodded. “Sent ‘em back to spend ten hours in 2013, but they were back in five seconds. It’s incredible.”

Sitting back a little bit, Pepper blew out a long breath. “ _You’re_ incredible.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tony sighed. “You’re right, but it feels self-centered of me to say so.”

“Aren’t you just the picture of humility,” Pepper chuckled. “Was it hard, building that thing?”

“Not as hard as I thought it would be. Yet again, this ridiculous fucking mission somehow seems to be exceeding my expectations on all fronts...so I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“In typical Tony Stark fashion,” Pepper chastised. “But in the meantime...”

“Yeah, we got it built in record time. Bruce and Rocket and Strange—” Tony choked on the last name, but hastily continued. “—and I did most of the mechanics, and everyone else did heavy lifting, tune-ups, that sort of thing.”

Pepper, always the more observant of the two of them, had of course picked up on Tony’s slip. “When you say Strange...you mean Stephen Strange? Master of Mystic Arts guy?”

Tony exhaled loudly through his nose. “That’s the one.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed as she examined Tony’s expression, and there were several moments of tense silence as he looked everywhere except at her.

“Okay, either you’re plotting to murder him or you’re in love with him. Which is it?”

“Neither, thank you very much,” Tony mumbled, his resolve crumbling. “Or maybe both. _Not_ both, why the fuck did I just say that, I just – I don’t know, Pep.”

The expression on Pepper’s face had been one of a woman prepared to tease, but upon seeing how defeated Tony looked, she softened. “Tony, what’s going on? You can talk to me about anything, you know you’ve always been able to talk to me about anything.”

“That’s just it, Pepper, it’s _everything,_ ” Tony said, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I keep building things and planning things and things keep going _right,_ and I’m just waiting until something goes _wrong_ , and then there’s all the shit going on with Strange which I don’t even want to _try_ to unpack right now because it feels like he’s stuck himself inside my head and won’t get out. And everyone else is so confident that we can pull this off because I’m taking the lead, but...I’ve fucked up in every possible way there is to fuck up, and I’m worried that I’m going to do that with this mission and with Strange and with the world and with Morgan and with you...and...”

He looked up and met Pepper’s eyes, and saw that the tears in them mirrored his own.

“I’m scared, Pepper,” Tony whimpered. “I’m so fucking scared. I’m fucking terrified.”

Sighing, Pepper reached out to place one holographic hand over his, and he hung his head low, wishing that it was the real Pepper. “You know, one of the things that you’ve always had trouble remembering is that Iron Man isn’t invincible. He’s not made of metal all the time, he’s not bulletproof all the time. He’s a human underneath all of that armor.”

Tony felt the tears start to flow down his nose, and raised his head to meet the eyes of the person who understood him the best in the entire world.

“But one of my favorite things about you is that despite how much you love being strong, you realize how powerful you are when you’re vulnerable,” Pepper went on, scooting closer so that she and Tony were inches apart. “You’ve taken all the things you used to see as weaknesses – family, friendship, love, fear of the unknown – and turned them into your biggest strengths. And now they’re the things that drive you.”

Now Tony was openly sobbing, images and faces flashing through his mind as he thought of everything that was at stake. “I’m s-so scared, Pepper. I’m so _fucking_ scared. You have no idea how much is at stake here, and _what if it goes wrong_?”

Pepper’s beautiful blue eyes met Tony’s, and they were full of all the things he was feeling inside – hope and fear, joy and sorrow, anticipation and anger, all at war with one another and yet somehow coexisting all at the same time.

“And what if it goes right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is some shamelessly gay fanservice, in the form of an unnecessarily spicy brawling scene? I hope you all liked reading that, because I sure as hell enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Plot stuff picks back up next chapter -- but this was the last buffer chapter I've written, and so updates will be much spottier from here on out. I apologize in advance.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!


	10. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an argument with a cheesy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Guys...if you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York.”
> 
> A thrill of excitement shot through Stephen’s chest.
> 
> There was a beat of silence, and then Banner’s green form rose over the edge of the table.
> 
> “Shut the front door.”

The next day’s brainstorming session went much better than the first – they didn’t have to listen to too much of Thor’s droning, Nebula only tried to strangle Rocket twice, and at the end of the day, not a single word had been exchanged between Stephen and Stark, not even in an argument – which Stephen absolutely didn’t mind. He was happy to weigh in whenever he was asked to, and he knew that Stark had to take note of the suggestions he made in front of the team, never mind how he felt about them behind closed doors.

And Stephen, frankly, didn’t give a shit anymore about what Tony Stark thought of him. He’d hated him, and then Stark had done a few sweet things to potentially challenge that, and now they were back to square one again, and Stephen was tired. Tired of trying to juggle the agony and stress of this enormous mission, alongside a ridiculous crush that didn’t even matter, and tired of trying to read this unreadable asshole who clearly did not want to be understood.

There were bigger things to focus on.

At the end of the night, most of the team had decided to retire, happy with what they’d accomplished that day and wanting to be fresh for tomorrow’s work. Stephen had stayed behind, and had somehow managed to end up sprawled across the glass table in their brainstorming room. Natasha’s head was lolling thoughtfully on his shoulder and Stark was lying on her other side, massaging his temples while Banner lay on the ground, thumbing through an old address book. They’d been talking all evening about what exact points in time they had to travel to in order to access all the Stones, and Stephen had provided his own input about the Eye of Agamotto’s whereabouts throughout the past decade. He could tell Stark had only begrudgingly taken this information into account, but tried hard to let it irk him – despite the suspicious glances Natasha had been throwing his way all afternoon.

But Stark was the last thing on Stephen’s mind when Natasha said, “Guys...if you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York.”

A thrill of excitement shot through Stephen’s chest.

There was a beat of silence, and then Banner’s green form rose over the edge of the table.

“Shut the front door.”

“If we go sometime around 2012, we can get the Space Stone, the Mind Stone... _and_ the Time Stone,” Stephen breathed, meeting Natasha’s green eyes and seeing his own elation mirrored in them.

“And that leaves the Power Stone and Soul Stone in space...” Banner chimed in.

“...and the Reality Stone in Asgard,” Stark murmured.

They all glanced between one another, though Stephen and Stark purposely avoided one another’s gazes again.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Natasha choked out.

Stephen rarely liked to explore future timelines because of the uncertainty it often instilled in him, and also because the Ancient One had taught him not to abuse that power...but as he breathed in this victory, this small step toward reversing the damage that had previously seemed irreversible, he allowed himself a moment to let his eyes flutter shut in order to peruse what the future held.

The odds of them pulling this off were still heartbreakingly slim. Stephen knew that. But with each passing day, the number of potential realities in which they succeeded grew – from one in a trillion, to one in a billion, to one in five hundred million. Scenes of triumph flickered across the scenes of death more often than ever behind his eyelids – scenes in which phones buzzed with caller IDs from family members who had vanished five years ago, scenes in which children popped back into existence with their dinner forks still halfway to their mouths.

All of it was still overshadowed by something murky and terrifying and full of smoke and blue lights, which Stephen couldn’t quite identify and was too afraid to look into further. But as possibilities flashed before him, he felt a surge of power and love for these people in his chest, for the fact that they would stop at nothing to do the right thing – and might just pull it off this time.

When his eyes opened back up, Stark was hopping off the table, Banner was gathering scattered records off the floor, and Natasha’s voice could faintly be heard echoing throughout the compound as she urged everyone back into the meeting room, telling them that they’d solved it, they’d found all the Stones. And as quickly as the Avengers had filed out of there in hopes of catching a break for the night, they all poured back in with completely renewed vigor, talking animatedly and glancing with wonder at the holographic schematics twirling languidly above the table.

The moment Natasha came back inside, Stark crossed the room in three swift strides to clasp her forearms and whisper something to her with a smile, which she happily returned. Stephen fought not to stare for too long, or look too bitter.

“Relax, Doctor Man, your girlfriend isn’t gonna cheat on you with Tony,” an irritable voice muttered from somewhere at Stephen’s waist. “Don’t think he’s her type, anyway.”

Stephen glanced down to see Rocket staring in the same direction, and rolled his eyes. “Natasha isn’t my—”

“She was looking at you funny all day, though. Lovers’ quarrel, maybe?”

“I—”

“Who am I kidding, I don’t care. Just grab a beer and stop stressing about your love life, alright? We’ve got bigger things to think about.”

Stephen couldn’t really argue with that.

But as he was about to do exactly what Rocket suggested, he heard shuffling footsteps come up behind him, and when he turned around he was faced with exactly the person he’d been hoping _wouldn’t_ distract him from all the extremely big things he was trying hard to think about.

“Now, I’m not particularly inclined to say anything nice to you, but Nat asked me to, so—”

“Don’t bother,” Stephen muttered. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

“Fine. I was just going to tell you that your input wasn’t entirely useless today, but go ahead and be a dick about it then. See if I care.”

Stephen glanced back irritably just in time to see Stark turn on his heel and stride away to go look over his schematics some more, and it really _didn’t_ seem to be affecting him – which drove Stephen absolutely mad. If anything, it felt like Stark was using it as even more of an excuse to treat Stephen like the plague than before – he’d flinched multiple times that day at so much as a brushing of elbows between the two men.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on it, because moments later, Captain Rogers was addressing the entire group, and Stephen would be damned if he didn’t hang onto every single fucking _word_ of this plan.

“Alright, crew, listen up. Thanks to all of your incredible contributions, we have officially pinpointed three exact points in time which we can use to access _all six of our Stones_. So, as much as there still is at stake, take a moment to congratulate yourselves. This is a big step.”

A chorus of muffled cheers went up, and people turned to clasp each other’s hands or slap each other’s backs. Natasha was perched on the edge of the chair Stephen was sitting on, and one of her hands softly squeezed his shoulder – and when he turned to look at her, there was an appreciative smile on her face that warmed his insides.

“But now we have to actually execute this,” Rogers went on gravely. “We know when and where each Stone is, and we have a general idea of the security surrounding each one – so now we have to assign teams based on how our capabilities stack up against all the people who will want to keep us from getting our hands on these things.”

“And that is where I come in,” Stark chimed in, sauntering over to stand beside Rogers with an almost nauseatingly casual swagger. “Rogers has very kindly put me in charge of sorting all of you, and I have a way that I’d like to do it right off the bat, but unfortunately, I’m in a good mood today, so any volunteers can feel free to speak up now.”

There was a moment of silence before several hands went up, including Stephen’s own. It was no surprise that Stark had kept his eyes studiously trained on the other side of the room, but Stephen was nothing if not a patient man.

It was Thor who spoke up first. His eyes were glued to the floor, his face mostly obscured by his matted hair, and his shoulders hunched – but though his voice trembled, it was still clear and full of conviction.

“I have to go to Asgard.”

Stark swallowed. “Buddy, are you sure you’re—”

“I have to,” Thor growled, his teeth gritted and his knuckles white on the arms of his chair. “I have to go make things right.”

Rogers glanced with dubious concern at the pudgy God of Thunder, before saying, “Thor, you know that we don’t have any time for distractions or breakdowns. We have _one_ shot at this. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better suited somewhere else—”

“ _No!”_ Thor roared, making the whole room jump. “I have to do this.”

When he finally looked up, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. “For my mother.”

Another long moment of silence followed before, to everyone’s surprise, Rocket piped up next. “I’ll go with you.”

“Rocket—”

“I can build the thingy we need to suck the Reality Stone outta that ex-girlfriend of yours, and I’ll keep you in check in case anything goes wrong,” he continued, in a startlingly earnest contrast to his usual sarcasm-laden tone. “We’re family, man. We can do this together.”

Thor’s chin trembled for a long moment before he embraced the furry little maniac, and despite the ridiculousness of it all, Stephen felt the corners of his mouth curl upward a little bit.

“Alright, that was disgusting, but it works for me,” Stark interrupted. “Asgard doesn’t need more than two people – a larger party would draw too much attention. What’s next?”

Natasha hopped off the edge of Stephen’s chair, making eye contact with Clint across the room before saying, “Clint and I can go to Vormir and get the Soul Stone. We’re...the most familiar with murder, and have the best hand-to-hand combat skills.”

And on it went. The oddest pairing was definitely Nebula and James Rhodes, who were deemed the best to get the Power Stone from Morag. Captain Rogers believed that his complex knowledge of Hydra would prove useful in procuring the Mind Stone from them in the past. Stark chose Scott Lang as his right-hand to steal the Space Stone – which came as more of a surprise to Scott than anyone else.

“I assume that means Hulk and I will be getting the Time Stone, then,” Stephen said, after all other parties had received their assignments.

Stark finally, _finally_ turned his gaze on Stephen, but instead of the grudging acknowledgement or even a little bit of kindness that Stephen had been expecting, there was belligerence and even condescension, both of which stung in his chest a little bit more than he thought they would.

“Well, my plan was actually that Bruce would come with us to New York to try and get the Time Stone, and you’d stay behind to make sure everything was in order with the quantum tunnel,” Stark said, his voice so even that Stephen wanted to punch him in the teeth.

“W-what?”

Even the others looked surprised.

“You heard me.” Stark held Stephen’s gaze, even though Stephen felt his eyes yearning to skitter around the room, looking for proof that this might me some kind of sick fucking joke.

“You want me to _stay here_ and do nothing? While everybody else retrieves the Stones?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Natasha’s eyebrows were practically in her hairline. “Tony, seriously?”

Stephen rose from his chair. “You’re pawning me off with a shitty job you weren’t even planning to assign at all, just because you don’t fucking want my help—”

“I’m giving you the job you’re best suited for, because we don’t _need_ _you_ to help us get the Stones,” Stark responded coolly, and every word dug deeper into Stephen’s gut.

“ _Need_ me? I have proved time and time again that you _need_ me, but you just won’t admit that because you’re a pompous prick,” Stephen felt himself snap, hardly registering that he was saying it until the words had left his lips.

However, while this little remark seemed to leave the entire room reeling with the shock that someone had _dared_ to talk back to the great Tony Stark, Stark himself seemed more amused than anything else.

“Alright, let’s all calm down—” James Rhodes piped up.

“First off, try looking in a mirror before you call me a pompous prick,” Stark said, not even listening. “And secondly, my team knows how to handle missions like these. You don’t. We’ve been doing this together for years, and you’re going to be more of a liability than a help. Just because you’ve proved useful with a little bit of mechanics doesn’t mean you’re not going to fuck up something much more important.”

“Tony, he’s not going to fuck up, hasn’t he more than shown that?” Rogers asked.

“I know time better than almost anyone in this room,” Stephen snarled, moving closer to Stark with every step. “I can see into multiple realities at once in order to predict and potentially engineer the most likely outcomes. I know how to get the Time Stone, and I’m well acquainted with the person who currently has it, so _what_ is your problem with—”

“My problem is the fact that I don’t trust you, Stephen Strange,” Stark said loudly. “I don’t trust you. I have no reason to trust you, you’ve given me no reason to trust you, you don’t take me or _any_ of my ideas seriously, and you’re a pain in my ass.”

Stephen felt himself starting to shake, feeling all his rage and fear at being underestimated bubbling just beneath the surface of his skin. Orange sparks flickered around his fingertips which he was barely conscious of, as his mind flickered between possible outcomes, with and without him in them – along with crashing memories of all the times Stark had talked over him, all the times he’d been shunned at medical conferences after his accident, all the times he’d made Christine cry, all the times he’d let himself and everybody he loved down.

“You have no reason to trust me because you haven’t given me a chance to prove myself,” he managed to choke out, balling his hands into fists in order to hide their trembling.

“We can’t risk a mission this important on your need to fulfill your hero complex, alright?”

“You’ll let Thor go to Asgard, even though he might have a nervous breakdown,” Stephen hissed, jabbing a finger into Stark’s chest. “You’ll let Nebula get the Power Stone, even though she’s Thanos’s daughter. You’ll let Rogers take point on this mission when you think he needs to, despite all the times he’s let you down. And _we_ all listen to you without complaining, despite you fucking up and fucking up and fucking up so many times, because we’re all in this for the same reason, and we all want the same things, and for some reason _you_ seem to think that you can let your pride get in the way of that and I’ll let it slide.”

“The reason for all of those helpful examples you mentioned is because I’ve spent time with these people. They’ve done things with much lower stakes that let me know they were trustworthy, and good people, and wouldn’t fuck things up for us—"

“You were at rock bottom once too, you know,” Stephen spat.

That one seemed to take Stark aback. “What?”

“You were a rich, alcoholic asshole who spent his money on big orgies and bigger mansions, and you had nothing and no one who gave two shits about you. Isn’t that right?”

Now it was Stark’s turn to be at a loss for words. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

There was a long, _long_ silence.

Then Natasha spoke up. “I worked for the KGB.”

All eyes turned to her.

“I was a Russian spy,” she murmured. “I did – I did terrible things for the Russian government. Things I’m not proud of. Until you all...until this family helped me realize that I could use my strengths to do something good.”

Stephen felt like his heart might burst.

“I killed so many people,” Barton said. “So many.”

“So did I,” Banner added. “It was as Hulk most of the time, but still.”

“I was a washed-up mechanic who stole money from the poor,” Rocket muttered.

“All of us came from pain, and suffering, and screwing up,” Stephen said. “All of want to prevent that from happening to anybody else. And _all of us_ are here because we realized that hiding from what we had to do wasn’t going to cut it. Because we _needed_ to prove ourselves.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Stark finally asked. “You think that a sob story is gonna make me want to hold your hand and sing Kumbaya?”

“Because I know you know what it’s like to have messed up, and to finally have the chance to make things right,” Stephen said, as earnest as he could manage. “I _know_ you’ve taken the easy way out before, and I have too. Everyone here has. But...we’re all here because none of us can live with that anymore. All of us want to do the hard thing, now. And...I do too.”

Stephen took Stark’s next silence as an opportunity to glance around the room, feeling his heart swell at the amount of support he knew he had from all of these eclectic, powerful heroes. In the strangest way possible, it was only now – while being verbally ripped apart by Tony Stark – that he truly felt like he belonged. Like he was a real Avenger.

“Stark...Tony...I know you don’t trust me. But I need to do this, I need to help fix this, as badly as you do. And this is the best way I know how.”

It was true. This – the Eye of Agamotto, the Time Stone – this was the thing that Stephen knew the best, the thing that he’d fumbled and fucked up and would never stop regretting. But he was here, now, with a chance to make things right, and he’d be damned if he was going to squander that chance when it was right within his reach. And he remembered the lunch they’d had with Stark, when he’d lost his cool and screamed about how badly _he’d_ fucked things up, and Stephen knew that the other man understood. As much of a complete ass as he could be, he understood...

...because, deep down, they were more similar than either of them cared to admit.

Just as Stark opened his mouth to respond, Stephen heard soft clapping coming from across the room, and turned to see Natasha applauding him – actually _applauding_ – with a crooked smirk on her face. And then, one by one, the rest of the Avengers followed suit; not a standing ovation or anything, mind you, but all of them solemnly and proudly clapping for the fact that a broken man had stood up for himself, albeit to the Avengers’ intimidating leader.

Stark glanced around the room, his brows knitting as he saw the outpouring of support for Stephen, who tried not to let his elation show on his own face. He carefully schooled his features into something resembling neutral as Stark finally turned to face him again with a long-suffering sigh.

“I would like to state, for the record, that you are an asshole.”

“Fine.”

“And a cocky jerk.”

“Acceptable.”

“And that I still hardly trust you.”

“Considering that you let him help you do repairs on the quantum tunnel wiring when you’d pop a blood vessel if anyone else even touched that thing, I think you trust him a little bit more than you’re letting on, Tony,” Natasha quipped, a mischievous gleam in her eye as the remark diffused a bit of the tension in the room.

Stark breathed in deeply through his nose, before making eye contact with Banner. “You’ll keep an eye on him?”

“Two of ‘em,” Banner responded.

Eyes moving over everyone else, Stark added, “And you all will kill him if he tries anything?”

There were a number of rolled eyes, along with a chorus of “Tony, he’s not going to”.

Twinkling brown eyes met Stephen’s again, narrowed in wariness and calculation...but also flickering with just a little bit of hope.

“Then let’s go get those goddamn rocks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I updated, I lost a lot of momentum because I've been in a difficult place mental health wise, and had pretty bad writers' block -- but I rewatched Endgame tonight and that inspired me to keep going! Sorry that this chapter was mostly dialogue (it's a necessary filler chapter before the plot bit really starts), and even though I don't like how it's written, I hope you all enjoyed it!


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